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CULTURE,  DISCIPLINE 

AND 

DEMOCRACY 


BY 

A.  DUNCAN  YOCUM,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  Pedagogy,  University  of  Pennsylvania 


^ 


PHILADELPHFA: 

CHRISTOPHER    SOWER     COMPANY 

1913 


Copyright,  191 3,  by 
Christopher  Sower  Company 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Foreword vii 

CHAPTER  I 
The  Present  Status  of  Culture  Discipline  and  Direct  Prepa-  , 

RATION   FOR  LiFE II 

I.  Conditions  Resulting  in  Reaction  Toward  Academic  Specialization,  ii. — 
2.  The  Lessening  Confidence  in  Formal  Discipline,  17.— 3-  The  Increasing 
Demand  for  Direct  Preparation  for  Life,  19.— 4.  Increased  Willingness  for 
Readjustment,  20. — 5.  Readjustment  Must  Be  Determined  by  Scientific 
Research,  23. — 6.  Direct  Preparation  for  Life  More  Certain  Than  General 
Discipline,  24. — 7.  Either  Academic  or  Vocational  Specialization  May  Be 
Hostile  to  Culture  and  Democracy,  25. — 8.  The  Mutual  Interdependence  of 
Direct  Preparation  for  Life  and  General  Discipline,  29. 

CHAPTER  II 

An  Analysis  of  "Formal  Discipline"  into  Essential  Phases 
OF  Formal  Self-activity — Including  General  Discipline    30 

^ I.  The  Aim  of    Education    Useful    Self -activity,  30. — 2.  Educational  or 

Formal  Phases  of  Self-activity  Distinguished  from  Its  Psychological  Forms, 
33. — 3.  The  Five  Educational  or  Formal  Phases  of  Self-activity,  33. — 4.  Dis- 
tinction between  Direct  and  Indirect  Furtherance  of  the  Educational  Aim, 
35- — 5-  Cumulative  Impression,  36. — 6.  Initial  Remembrance,  40. — 7.  Vary- 
ing Apperception,  47. — 8.  Specific  Discipline,  57. — 9.  General  Discipline,  76.    /^ 

CHAPTER  III 

A  Discussion  of  the  Conditions  Favorable  to  General  Dis- 
cipline       79 

I.  Extent  of  General  Discipline  Dependent  Upon  Occurrence  of  the  General 
Stimulus,  79. — 2.  Necessity  for  Determining  the  Extent  to  Which  it  is  Useful, 
82. — 3.  Continuity  Its  First  Condition,  83. — 4.  As  General  a  Stimulus  as^is 
Useful,  the  Second,  85. — 5.  The  Third,  Permanent  Association  of  the  General 
Stimulus  with  Typical  Applications,  90. — 6,  The  Fourth,  the  Habit  of  Seeking 
Unaccustomed  Applications,  91. — 7.  The  Fifth,  Emotionalizing  of  the  General 
Stimulus,  93. — 8.  The  Sixth,  Its  Varying  Apperception,  96. — 9.  The 'Seventh, 
the  Knowledge  Necessary  to  Its  Identification  and  Application,  98. — 10.  The 
Eighth,  the  Habit  of  Analysis  and  Synthesis  on  the  Recognition  of  Any  Part  of 
It,  101. 


267341 


IV  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IV 

PAGE 

The  Comparative  Uselessness  of  the  Old  "Disciplinary"  or 
"Formal"  Subjects  to  All  Phases  of  Formal  Self-activity 
Except  Specific  Discipline no 

I.  The  Usefulness  of  an  Idea  or  Activity  Dependent  Upon  the  Relationships 
in  Which  It  Is  Recalled,  no. — 2.  Mode  of  Measuring  Their  Usefulness,  in. — 
3.  The  General  Course  of  Study  Must  Emphasize  Subjects  Containing  High 
Proportion  of  Directly  Useful  Material,  112. — 4.  The  Study  of  the  Formal 
Subjects  But  Little  Favorable  to  Phases  of  Formal  Self-activity  Other  Than 
Specific  Discipline,  113. — 5.  The  Limited  Formal  Self -activity  Resulting  From 
the  Elementary  Study  of  a  Foreign  Language,  114. — 6.  The  Limitations  to  the 
Formal  Value  of  Mathematical  Study,  116. — 7.  Varying  Apperception  Fur- 
thered by  the  Presentation  of  the  Most  Many-sided  and  Recurring  Relation- 
ships Wherever  Found,  119, — 8.  Material  Organized  for  Direct  Furtherance 
Most  Useful  to  Varying  Apperception,  120. — 9.  Recapitulation  of  the  Advan- 
tages of  Direct  Preparation  Over  the  Formal  Branches  in  the  Furtherance  of 
General  Discipline,  120. — 10.  General  Conclusions  Concerning  the  Course  of 
Study,  122. — II.  The  Greater  Part  of  Mathematics,  Exclusive  of  Arithmetic, 
Must  Be  Eliminated  from  the  Required  General  Course,  123. — 12.  Foreign 
Languages  Should  Be  Required  Only  of  Those  to  Whose  Specialization  They 
are  Essential,  126. — 13.  The  Place  of  the  Natural  Sciences  in  the  General 
Course,  130. — 14.  Increased  Representation  of  Subjects  Rich  in  Humanistic 
Content,  132. — 15.  The  Use  of  Selected  Portions  of  Academic  Branches  No 
Menace  to  Discipline,  132. — 16.  The  Partial  Subject  Matter  Selected  Can 
Usually  Be  Organized  Academically,  as  Well  as  for  Direct  Preparation,  134. 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Interdependence  of  Culture  and  Direct  Preparation 

FOR  Life 136 

1.  Culture  Itself  a  Partial  Phase  of  Direct  Preparation  for  Life,  137. — 2.  The 
Essential  Factors  in  Culture,  137. — 3.  Selection  and  Specialization  Necessary 
in  Culture  Itself,  138. — 4.  Specialization  in  Culture  Must  Be  Preceded  by  a 
Culture  Common  to  All  Educated  Individuals,  140. — 5.  Culture  Must  Further 
Other  Phases  of  the  Educational  Aim,  140. — 6.  A  General  Culture  Related  to 
Vocation  Should  Parallel  All  Vocational  Specialization,  and  Direct  Prepara- 
tion, All  Specialization  in  Culture,  143. — 7.  Undemocratic  to  Develop  Artistic 
Expression  at  the  Expense  of  Aesthetic  Appreciation,  144- — 8.  The  Rapid 
Multiplication  of  Means  for  Developing  a  Common  Aesthetic  Appreciation, 
147. — 9.  Instruction  in  Aesthetics  Should  Be  Distinct  from  Other  Phases 
of  Instruction  Which  Interfere  with  It,  152. — 10.  Both  DirectJPreparation  and 
General  Discipline  Must  Include  a  Part  of  the  Content  Most  Useful  for  Cul- 
ture, 156. — II.  Culture  Not  Only  Included  in  Direct  Preparation,  but  Depend- 
ent Upon  It,  158. — 12.  The  Study  of  Greek  and  Latin  Belongs  to  Specializa- 
tion, 160.— 13.  The  Test  of  Relative  Worth  Determines  the  Cultural  Material 
Which  Should  Be  Required  of  All,  162. — 14.  No  Ground  Remains  for  Exclud- 
ing From  Higher  Education  the  Students  Who  Fail  in  the  Old  Formal  Subjects, 
163. 


CONTENTS  V 

CHAPTER  VI 

PAGE 

Uniformity  for  Various  Localities  in  the  General  Course 
OF  Study  Limited  to  the  Essential  Relationships  Which 
Must  Be  Certainly  Memorized 165 

I.  The  Fundamental  Nature  of  the  Distinction  Between  Essential  and 
Optional  Relationships,  165. — 2.  An  Exact  Determination  of  Relative  Worth 
Unnecessary,  166. — 3.  Courses  of  Study,  While  Uniform  in  Their  Essential 
Relationships,  are  Identical  in  the  Relative  Usefulness  of  Their  Optional 
Relationships  Rather  Than  in  the  Optional  Relationships  Themselves,  167. — 
4.  The  Certain  Memorizing  of  Essential  Relationships  a  Necessary  Condition 
to  the  Mastery  of  Optional  Material,  169. — 5.  Ignorance  of  Essential  Rela- 
tionships Too  Severe  a  Penalty  for  Carelessness  or  Incompetence,  171. — 6. 
For  the  Sake  of  Both  Individual  and  State  Essential  Knowledge  Must  Be 
Compelled  in  School,  171. — 7.  Specialization  Varying  With  Individuals  Should 
Parallel  Direct  Preparation  in  General  and  Be  Paralleled  by  It,  172. 


CHAPTER  VII 

The  Inadequacy  of  Tests  for  the  Mere  Elimination  of 
Harmful,  Specialized,  or  Impracticable  Material  from 
THE  Course  of  Study 179 

I.  Dr.  McMurry's  Test  for  Elimination  Suggestive  Rather  than  Determin- 
ing, 179. — 2.  A  More  Adequate  Test  for  Total  Rejection  or  Exclusion  of  Par- 
ticular Relationships,  181. — 3.  Necessity  for  the  Further  Exclusion  of  Material 
Hostile  to  the  Educational  Aim,  i8i.— 4.  Necessity  for  the  Further  Exclusion 
and  Continual  Rejection  of  All  That  is  Not  Useful  to  the  Majority  of  Individuals 
Who  Are  Not  Specialists,  183.— 5.  All  Material  Must  Be  Rejected  Which  is 
Being  Effectively  Taught  Outside  the  School,  or  Which  Cannot  Be  Effectively 
Taught  in  the  School,  187. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Application  of  the  Test  of  Relative  Worth  from  the  Stand- 
point OF  All  Formal  Self-activity  Which  is  Indirectly 
Useful 191 

I.  Application  of  the  Test  to  Relationships  Intended  to  Further  Cumulative 
Impression,  igi. — 2.  Relative  Worth  from  the  Standpoint  of  Mere  Remem- 
brance, 195. — 3.  Genetic  Conditions  Determining  Only  for  Optional  Material, 
198. — 4.  Words  the  Most  Useful  Material  from  the  Standpoint  of  Mere  Re- 
membrance, 200. — 5.  Application  of  the  Test  for  Selection  to  Varying  Apper- 
ception, 213. — 6.  Application  of  the  Test  for  Relative  Value  to  General  Disci- 
pline, 225. 


VI  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IX 

PAGE 

Application  of  the  Test  of  Relative  Worth  to  Specific 
Discipline,  with  the  Consequent  Determination  of  a 
Cumulative  and  Dominating  System,  Both  Directly  and 
Indirectly  Useful 237 

I.  Specific  Discipline  as  Essential  to  Formal  Self -activity  as  to  Direct 
Preparation  and  Specialization,  237. — 2.  Application  of  the  Test  to  Direct 
Preparation  for  the  Various  Phases  of  the  Educational  Aim,  239. — 3.  Deter- 
mination of  the  Relative  Worth  of  Specific  Relationships  Results  in  Specific 
System,  245. — 4.  Application  of  the  Test  to  Academic  Organization,  260. — 5. 
The  Reorganization  of  the  Course  of  Study  Into  a  Dynamic  System  of  Essen- 
tially Useful  Relationships,  267. — 6,  Application  of  the  Test  to  Specialization, 
271. — 7.  Specialization  in  Portions  of  Mathematics  a  Necessary  Preparation 
for  Many  Vocations,  274. — 8.  Specialization  in  Some  Modern  Language 
Broadens  Apperception  ,Is  Helpful  to  the  Majority  of  Vocations,  and  Desirable 
from  the  Standpoint  of  Avocation,  276. — 9.  Even  Specialization  in  Avocation 
Determined  by  the  Test  of  Relative  Worth,  278. — 10.  Only  the  Test  for  Rela- 
tive Worth  Can  Determine  the  Relative  Part  to  Be  Played  by  General  Educa- 
tion and  Specialization,  280. 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Continuity  Necessary  to  a  Cumulative  and  Dominating 
System  to  Be  Ensured  Primarily  Through  Direct  Prep- 
aration AND,  Secondarily,  Through  Specialization 282 

I.  From  the  Standpoint  of  Continuity  Habit  Must  Be  Considered  in  at 
Least  Four  Degrees  of  Complexity,  282. — 2.  The  Impracticability  of  Vocational 
Specialization  as  a  Means  to  Continuity,  285. — 3.  More  Likelihood  of  Con- 
tinuity Through  Academic  Specialization  Strengthened  by  Varying  Voca- 
tional Motive,  286. — 4.  Continuity  Practicable  and  at  the  Same  Time  Most  Use- 
ful Only  Through  the  Progressive  and  Cumulative  Organization  of  the  Material 
Most  Directly  Useful  to  All,  289. — 5.  Early  Opportunity  for  Specialization 
Should  Re- enforce  the  Continuity  Based  on  Direct  Preparation  for  Life  in 
General,  290. — 6.  The  Specific  Discipline  Involved  in  Direct  Preparation  for 
Life  Necessary  to  Increase  the  Probability  of  Usefulness  of  Every  Form  of 
Indirect  Instruction,  292. — 7.  The  "Old"  Education  and  the  "New"  Com- 
plementary, 294. — 8.  Continuity  and  Concentration  Through  Specialization 
Must  Supplement  Direct  Preparation  for  Life  in  General  and  Be  Related  to 
It,  296. — 9.  The  Development  of  Education  as  a  Science  Necessary  Both  to 
Democracy  and  Christian  Civilization,  298. 


FOREWORD 


If  I  had  been  writing  wholly  from  the  standpoint  of  edu- 
cational tradition,  the  title  of  this  book  would  have  been 
Democracy  through  Culture  and  Discipline.  For  the  first 
step  taken  toward  democratic  education  was  to  ensure  in- 
telligent citizenship  by  making  the  culture  and  discipline, 
which  in  the  past  had  been  reserved  for  privileged  social 
classes,  accessible  to  the  whole  people  through  a  system  of 
free  schools.  Writing  as  I  have  done,  wholly  as  an  investi- 
gator who  records  in  as  logical  order  as  he  can  the  results  of 
his  inquiry,  a  truer  title  for  my  work  as  it  reaches  its  comple- 
tion would  be  Culture  and  Discipline  through  Direct  Prep- 
aration for  Democracy.  For  from  the  standpoint  of  cul- 
ture and  discipHne  as  distinct  from  democracy,  I  have  been 
forced  to  see  that  for  the  majority  of  individuals  who  do  not 
continue  to  lead  the  life  of  academic  specialists,  no  discipline 
can  be  lasting  or  culture  continuing  which  is  not  closely 
related  to  every-day  life.  And  to  an  education  which  is 
democratic  only  in  its  opportunity,  I  have  gradually  come  to 
add  education  which  is  democratic,  on  the  one  hand,  in  its 
ideals,  its  subject  matter,  its  organization  and  its  method,  and 
on  the  other,  in  compulsion  which  demands  not  only  that 
each  individual  shall  have  through  compulsory  school  at- 
tendance the  rudiments  of  academic  knowledge,  but,  through 
the  compulsion  of  repetition,  every  detail  of  culture  and  dis- 
cipline essential  to  usefulness  to  the  community  and  the 
state. 

That  is,  purely  academic  training,  with  its  general  informa- 
tion, general  culture,  and  general  discipline,  has  proved  itself 


viii  FOREWORD 

to  be  not  only  an  uncertain  preparation  for  citizenship,  de- 
pendent for  its  own  usefulness  upon  more  direct  preparation 
for  life,  but  to  depend  even  for  its  continuity  as  habit  and 
system  upon  its  relationship  to  the  every-day  experience  of 
ordinary  people. 

It  is,  after  all,  the  fundamental  changes  which  the  last 
hundred  years  have  made  in  the  every-day  experience  of  the 
masses  that  are  responsible  for  the  educational  readjustment 
of  which  we  are  just  becoming  fully  conscious.  Not  only 
democracy,  but  the  transformation  of  industrial  Hfe,  increas- 
ing leisure,  a  higher  standard  of  living,  the  broadening  of 
social  service,  and  the  almost  inconceivable  extension  of  the 
domain  of  human  knowledge  are  compelling  a  different  kind 
of  education.  More  than  this,  as  slowly  but  surely  the  com- 
pulsion of  scientific  determination  is  added  to  that  of  social 
readjustment,  individual  opinion  in  educational  practice 
must  yield  to  the  truth  laid  bare  by  analysis,  research,  and 
experimentation,  as  tradition  is  yielding  to  changing  life  and 
civilization. 

Meanwhile,  our  national  educational  policy  is  being  widely 
influenced  by  two  classes  of  extremists — traditionalists,  to 
whom  a  liberal  education  means  a  discipline  and  culture  re- 
mote from  life;  and  iconoclasts,  to  whom  preparation  for  life 
is  limited  to  a  vocational  training  which  has  no  time  for  gen- 
eral discipline  or  culture.  Not  only  is  an  open  mind  one  of 
the  highest  products  of  civilization  and  education,  but  there 
is  probably  no  field  of  investigation,  and  especially  of  read- 
justment, in  which  it  is  more  difficult  to  maintain  it  than  in 
that  of  education  itself.  Not  merely  what  is  taught,  but  the 
method  by  which  it  is  imparted,  becomes  a  part  of  one's 
personality  and  tends  to  dominate  it,  if  not  through  an  ade- 
quate discipline,  at  least  in  point  of  view.  As  the  life  of  a 
particular  individual  is  crowned  with  success,  the  vocational 
training  or  the  general  education  which  prepared  for  it 
appears  to  him  to  be  justified  by  the  logic  of  experience  itself, 
while  the  particular  form  of  culture  which  he  possesses,  as  it 
raises  him  above  routine,  becomes  a  part  of  his  faith  and  his 


FOREWORD  IX 

idealism.  Indeed,  a  strong  mind  cannot  be  an  open  one  if  it 
is  not  also  analytic.  The  traditionalist  cannot  be  justly 
called  upon  to  surrender  old  beliefs  as  wholes  which  are,  after 
all,  partial  truths,  or  to  accept  new  ones  as  wholes  which  too 
often  represent  hasty  generalizations  as  well  as  scientifically 
determined  facts.  Nor  can  the  iconoclast  see  the  partial 
truths  in  an  old  belief  when  he  fails  to  see  it  in  its  parts, 
or  tolerate  criticisms  of  the  new  when  he  cannot  discriminate 
between  its  generalizations  and  its  facts. 

This  is  why,  in  a  period  of  transition  from  a  variety  of 
deductive  educational  systems  to  education  as  an  inductive 
science,  it  is  so  difficult  for  us  to  follow  *^the  argument  whither- 
soever it  may  lead."  Fortunate  it  is  for  human  progress 
that  as  educational  science  is  beginning  to  analyze  and  ex- 
periment, philosophy  is  becoming  pragmatic,  culture  more 
truly  liberal,  and  experience  expectant  and  receptive  through 
the  continual  contributions  of  discovery  and  invention  to  the 
every-day  life  of  the  people.  Whether  or  not  each  individual 
is  able  to  meet  readjustment  with  an  open  mind,  the  ulti- 
mate triumph  of  analysis,  experimentation,  and  research 
is  sure. 

The  discussion  which  is  to  follow  is  not  so  much  an  at- 
tempted solution  of  the  educational  problem,  as  an  effort  to 
formulate  it.  It  seeks  to  analyze  the  vague  presuppositions 
and  generalizations  of  current  debate,  and  to  apply  to  exist- 
ing theory  and  practice  the  definite  facts  and  propositions 
upon  which  a  multitude  of  partial  or  uncertain  truths  are 
collectively  based.  The  result  is  not  an  assemblage  of  de- 
ductive conclusions,  but  a  thousand  and  one  specific  problems 
which  only  experimentation  and  research  can  solve.  Obvi- 
ously, if  at  each  stage  of  the  argument  the  reader  is  unable  to 
follow  the  analysis,  if  he  substitutes  his  accustomed  ideas  for 
tentative  though  cumulative  conclusions  on  which  further 
discussion  is  based,  he  will  utterly  fail  to  take  the  successive 
steps  necessary  to  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  prob- 
lem as  a  whole.  At  best,  with  an  open  mind,  he  can  share 
the  writer's  hope  that  both  tentative  conclusions  and  the 


X  FOREWORD 

highly  organized  system  of  direct  preparation  which  they 
appear  to  justify  may  soon  be  put  to  scientifically  valid  test. 
In  the  educational  field,  as  elsewhere,  the  compulsion  of 
science  must  be  substituted  for  that  of  tradition  and  displace 
the  individualism  which,  like  that  of  Protagoras,  still  makes 
individual  man  the  measure  of  all  things. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND   DEMOCRACY 


CHAPTER  I 


THE    PRESENT  STATUS  OF  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE    AND    DIRECT 
PREPARATION   FOR   LIFE 

I.  Conditions  Which  Have  Resulted  in  a  Reaction  Toward 
Academic  Specialization 

If  not  quite  unknown  to  the  mass  of  thinkers,  at  least  in 
utter  absence  of  that  general  interest  which  a  realization  of 
their  consequences  would  call  forth,  two  revolutionary  tend- 
encies are  becoming  dominant  in  educational  practice — a 
continually  increasing  demand  for  direct  and  specific  train- 
ing for  definite  activities  of  life  and  a  lessening  confidence  in 
the  certainty  and  efficiency  of  formal  discipline.  This  lack 
of  popular  interest  is  more  remarkable  from  the  fact  that  the 
present  educational  crisis  is  a  direct  and  gradual  develop- 
ment of  the  educational  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  beginning  of  the  century  was  marked  by  a  many-sided- 
ness of  achievement  which  widely  extended  the  domain  of 
human  knowledge  and  broadened  the  range  of  human  inter- 
ests.    It  was  a  period  of  successful  exploration,  discovery, 
and  invention,  of  political  revolution,  and  moral,  religious, 
and  social  reform.    As  the  revival  of  ancient  learning  stimu- 
lated sixteenth  century  scholars  to  the  activities  which  con- 
stitute the  Renaissance,  so  Australasia  and  the  South  Sea 
Islands,  Harvey's  circulation  of  the  blood  and 
Priestley's  discovery  of  oxygen,   the  invention  Jj^^asrin 
of  the  spinning  jenny,  the  steam  engine  and  the  knowledge 
locomotive,  the  rise  of  manufactures,  the  French  at  beginning 
Revolution  and  electoral  reform,  Wesleyanism,   centoy. 
temperance    societies,  homes  for  the  deaf  and 
dumb,    abolition,    phrenology — these,    and    many    equally 

11 


IP.  CULTURE  DI^aaiNE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

potent  factors  in  a  changing  civilization,  united  to  compel 
a  truer  and  fuller  educational  readjustment  as  yet  in  its 
beginning,  in  whose  completion  the  Renaissance  itself  will 
become  complete.  In  America  the  public  school  system  was 
created.  In  England,  after  the  failure  of  Lord  Brougham's 
Commission  to  establish  a  national  school  system,  the  Society 
for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge  was  formed,  and, 
through  Penny  Encyclopedia  and  Penny  Magazine,  began  its 
systematic  and  determined  effort  to  give  the  new  knowledge 
to  the  masses.  Equally  enthusiastic  and  persistent  attempts 
were  naturally  made  to  introduce  it  into  the  school  curriculum. 
The  elaborate  course  proposed  in  all  seriousness  by  Jeremy 
Bentham,  in  which  this  enthusiasm  had  its  culmination, 
must  be  presented  in  its  entirety  in  order  to  show  the  quanti- 
tative extreme  which  was  reached:^ 

Elementary  Arts. — Reading,  waiting,  arithmetic. 

First  Stage  (Age  Seven). — Mineralogy,  botany,  zoology, 
geography,  geometry  (definitions  only),  history,  chronol- 
Its  press-       ogy,  drawing. 

ure  upon  Second   Stage    (Age   Eight). — Same  subjects, 

the  school.  ^^j|^  mechanics,  hydrostatics,  hydraulics,  pneu- 
matics, acoustics,  optics.  Chemistry:  mineral,  vegetable, 
animal.  Meteorology,  magnetism,  electricity,  galvanism, 
balistics.  Archaeology,  statistics.  English,  Latin,  Greek, 
French,  and  German  grammars. 

Third  Stage  (Age  Nine). — Subjects  of  previous  stages  and 
mining,  geology,  land-surveying,  architecture,  husbandry, 
including  the  theory  of  vegetation  and  gardening. 

Physical  economics — i,  e.,  the  application  of  mechanics 
and  chemistry  to  domestic  management,  involving  "maximi- 
zation of  bodily  comfort  in  all  its  shapes,  minimization  of 
bodily  discomfort  in  all  its  shapes," — biography. 

Fourth  Stage  (Age  Ten).— Hygigstics  (art  of  preserving 
and  restoring  health),  comprising  physiology,  anatomy, 
pathology,  nosology,  dietetics,  materia  medica,  prophy- 
lactics (art  of  warding  off  evils),  surgery,  therapeutics; 
zohygiastics  (art  of  taking  care  of  animals). 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  13 

Phthisozoics  (art  of  destroying  noxious  animals:  vermin 
killing,  rat  catching,  etc.). 

Fifth  Stage  (Age  Eleven). — Geometry  (with  demonstra- 
tions), algebra,  mathematical  geography,  astronomy.  Tech- 
nology, or  arts  and  manufactures  in  general.  Bookkeeping, 
or  the  art  of  registration  or  recordation.  Commercial  book- 
keeping.   Note-taking. 

To  all  this  a  certain  Mr.  Simpson  adds: 

Sixth  Stage  (Age  Twelve). — ^History,  government,  com- 
merce.    Political  economy.    Philosophy  of  the  human  mind. 

It  is  this  impossible  scheme  that  is  used  by  Joseph  Payne 
to  illustrate  the  fallacy  that,  because  there  is  so  much  to  be 
learned  in  the  world,  children  must  learn  it  all  in  school.^ 
It  is  absurd  only  when,  in  the  light  of  the  modern  course  of 
study,  one  thinks  of  the  limitations  and  inefficiency  of  the 
early  charity  schools.  When  one  turns  to  the  course  of 
study  of  the  Winchesters  and  Etons  for  which  it  is  intended, 
with  the  whole  of  boyhood  and  young  manhood  devoted  to  an 
equally  quantitative  study  of  Latin  and  of  Greek,  Jeremy 
Bentham's  substitute  does  not  appear  quite  so  extraordinary. 

The  actual  defense  of  the  traditional  curriculum  against 
the  onslaught  of  the  new  knowledge  was  the  inertia  of  school 
men  trained  through  the  old  content,  together  with  not  a 
little  of  the  religious  prejudice  which  was  so  potent  a  factor 
in  the  defeat  of  Lord  Brougham's  reforms.  It  was  not  until 
the  latter  years  of  Mr.  Spencer's  life  that  the  charge  of  irre- 
ligiousness,  brought,  for  example,  against  Horace  Mann  and 
the  Combes,  was  toned  down  to  such  an  extent  that  he  ex- 
pressed his  surprise  at  its  almost  utter  absence. 

The  theoretical  defense  against  a  many-sided  curriculum 
in  the  beginning  and,  as  conservatism  began  to  yield  and 
religious  prejudice  softened,  the  only  defense  was  its  check 
the  theory  of  formal  discipline.  It,  too,  reached  by  formal 
an  extreme  which  perhaps  contrasts  itself  most  ^"^  ^^®* 
sharply  with  Jeremy  Bentham's  in  Joseph  Payne's  insistence 
that  "in  order  to  train  the  mind  usefully,  concentration  and 
not  accumulation   must  be  our  guiding  principle — in  other 


14  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

words,  we  must  direct  the  most  strenuous  efforts  of  our  pupils 
to  the  complete  and  full  comprehension  of  some  one  subject  as  an 
instrument  of  intellectual  discipline. ^^^  Since  this  one  sub- 
ject must  itself  be  many-sided  in  the  activities  which  it  calls 
forth,  and  must  be  closely  connected  with  human  interests 
and  feelings,  Mr.  Payne  concentrated  upon  Latin,  as  opposed 
to  mathematics  or  natural  science.  That  is,  in  common  with 
Thomas  Arnold^  and  W.  T.  Harris,^  he  gave  Latin  prominence, 
not,  with  modem  Hellenists,  on  account  of  a  liberal  culture 
remote  from  life,  but  because  of  a  humanism  and  universality 
which  make  possible  the  many-sided  relation  to  modern  life, 
without  which  the  habits  fixed  with  the  aid  of  concentration 
cannot  be  generally  applied. 

Champions  of  formal  discipline  are  not  yet  urging  many- 
sidedness  as  necessary  to  the  general  application  of  the 
habits  which  constitute  specific  discipline.  On 
check  to  ^^^  contrary,  they  are  beginning  to  perceive  that 
discipline,  in  failing  to  insist  upon  an  extreme  concentration, 
decreasing  logically  inevitable  if  discipHne  is  to  be  given  by 
tion.  "  branches  of  knowledge  taken  as  wholes,  they 
ignored  one  condition  fundamental  to  the  fixed 
habits  without  which  formal  discipline  is  impossible.  Mr. 
Payne  himself  necessarily  prepared  the  way  for  a  diversity 
fatal  to  concentration  through  a  single  formal  subject  by 
admitting  that  other  subjects  than  Latin  have  disciplinary 
value,  and  must  be  included  in  so  far  as  they  do  not  interfere 
with  concentration  upon  the  subject  selected  as  the  main 
instrument  of  discipline.^  A  few  years  later  Alexander  Bain, 
with  his  keen  power  of  analysis,  pointed  out  in  a  general  way 
the  activities  developed  by  each  branch,  and  demonstrated 
once  for  all  that  Latin  develops  no  activity  which  cannot  be 
developed  by  some  other  subject  of  study.^  This  left  no 
effective  defense  against  the  individualism  of  genetic  psy- 
chology which,  re-enforcing  that  of  Rousseau  and  later  itself 
re-enforced  by  Herbartianism,  appeared  to  give  scientific 
sanction  to  the  elective  system.  So  to  Latin  and,  in  the 
secondary  school  at  least,  a  critical  study  of  English  have 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOC: 


ut  the  ilJ^Sal 


been  added  not  only  the  modern  languages,  but 
sciences  and  numerous  other  subjects,  all  justj^|i,^t  least  in 
part,  on  the  plea  of  discipline,  and  all  so  ineff^^eiy  taught, 
from  the  disciplinary  point  of  view,  as  to  result  in  gener^y 
admitted  failure.  Hence,  Woodrow  Wilson's  reference  to  the 
social  sideshows  that  interfere  with  the  main  performance,^ 
and  President  Lowell's  reactionary  modification  of  the  elect- 
ive system  at  Harvard.  The  former's  most  characteristic 
stand  is  for  concentration  on  academic  work  in  general* 
through  a  lessening  of  distractions  and  a  closer  supfcvision 
of  study;  the  latter's,  for  concentration  through  academic 
specialization. 

The  recent  recommendations  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation 
concerning  college  entrance  requirements  point  in  the  latter 
direction — concentration  on  two  or  three  subjects,  . 

with  free  range  in  a  variety  of  others.^    Professor   concentra- 
Isaac  Schwatt  took  a  still  more  consistent  and  tion  not  the 
courageous   step  when  he  suggested  before  the  ^^^j^g  ^^' 
New  England  Association  of  Teachers  of  Mathe- 
matics that  high  school  pupils  who  are  not  looking  forward 
to  specialization  in  some  subject  requiring  applied  mathe- 
matics, can  be  given  the  discipline  peculiar  to  mathematics 
through  a  far  more  thorough  study  of  arithmetic  to  the 
exclusion  of  algebra  and  geometry.^^    In  short,  the  apparent 
but  partial  remedy  of  concentration  through  specialization 
is  being  seized  upon  without  regard  to  its  possible  supple- 
ment or  alternative — concentration   through  the   selection 
and  equally  systematic  organization  of  material  pre-eminent 
in  its  direct  usefulness  to  life  in  general. 

The  attempt  at  discipline  through  at  least  the  elementary 
study  of  a  variety  of  subjects  as  systematic  wholes,  with  its 
consequent  lack  of  concentration,  would  not,  per- 
haps, have  resulted  so  disastrously  had  it  not   Jon  against 
been  made  in  a  period  of  reaction  against  mechan-   formal 
ical  memorizing.     Since  habit  is  the  first  stage   memorizing 
of  discipline,  failure  to  repeat  ideas  and  activities  check. 
again  and  again  in  the  unvarying  sequences  neces- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

sary  to  the  formation  of  fixed  habits  is  the  immediate  cause 
of  a  forgetfulness,  for  which  too  large  a  number  of  sequences 
is  but  a  condition.  One  of  the  most  contradictory  fallacies 
into  which  teachers  have  been  led  in  the  effort  to  develop 
self-activity  is  insistence  upon  an  immediate  self-activity 
which  refuses  to  utilize  even  a  temporary  imitation,  verbatim 
repetition,  or  mechanical  prompting,  which  may  be  the  most 
direct  and  effective  means  to  a  self-activity  truly  independent 
and  persistent.  On  the  other  hand,  immediate  self-activity, 
apperception,  and  interest,  temporarily  called  forth  through 
the  stimulus  of  an  intelligent  teacher,  will  leave  behind  them 
pleasant  impressions  rather  than  discipline  if  the  potentially 
most  useful  of  the  new  associations  have  not  been  made 
definite  by  drill  and  the  old  ones  more  firmly  fixed  in  the  spe- 
cific relationships  upon  which  their  usefulness  depends. 
Mechanical  memorizing  in  unvarying  relationships  is  as  neces- 
sary to  discipline  and  the  independent  exercise  of  rational 
activities  as  repetition  in  continually  varying  relationships  is 
necessary  to  apperception  and  adequate  knowledge. 

A  third  reason  for  failure  has  been  overconfidence  in  the 
disciplinary  efl&ciency  of  the  method  peculiar  to  a  particular 
Neglect  of  branch  of  knowledge,  to  the  common  and  some- 
pedagogical  times  arrogant  exclusion  of  the  pedagogical 
method  a  method  through  which  it  can  be  most  economic- 
ally and  certainly  mastered.  For  this  an  equally 
arrogant  pedagogy  has  been  in  part  responsible.  Until 
general  pedagogical  principles  are  analyzed  into  specific 
propositions  that  clearly  apply  to  the  details  involved  in  the 
teaching  of  every  branch,  and  the  problems  revealed  by  such 
application  are  solved  by  scientific  experimentation  and  re- 
search, the  failure  resulting  from  the  attempt  to  teach  too 
much  and  inadequate  memory  drill  will  be  made  all  the  more 
inevitable  by  ineffective  methods  of  instruction.  From  the 
standpoint  of  the  formal  discipHne  claimed  for  the  abstract 
subject,  as  distinct  from  the  specific  discipline  more  or  less 
adequately  given,  the  chief  pedagogic  lack  is  a  study  of  the 
conditions  favorable  to  general  discipline. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  17 

The  culminating  blunder  of  all,  possible  only  to  thinkers 
blinded  by  the  point  of  view  just  discussed,  is  the  assumption 
that  the  more  remote  a  branch  of  knowledge  from 
life,  the  better  the  means  which  it  affords  for  from  every- 
discipline.  The  assumption  usually  accompanies  day  life 
it  that  such  subjects,  through  their  remoteness,  {^^^^^^  ^°^' 
present  greater  diflSiculties  and  demand — and 
through  their  lack  of  connection  with  every-day  distractions 
receive — ^greater  concentration.  Even  granting  this,  it  is 
necessary  still  further  to  assume  that  the  resulting  discipline 
once  gained  is  so  thorough  that  it  can  persist  outside  the 
school  in  the  absence  of  the  incidental  and  continual  repeti- 
tions possible  only  to  subject  matters  which  are  most  closely 
related  to  life.  With  the  speciaHst  such  study,  though  often 
specific  and  narrow,  may  constitute  an  exceptionally  persist- 
ent discipline,  because  of  the  very  fact  that  his  specialty, 
remote  from  the  every-day  life  of  the  mass,  is  connected  with 
his  own.  In  similar  fashion,  the  specific  discipline  peculiar 
to  any  branch,  a  discipline  which  may  never  become  formal 
or  general,  depends  for  its  mere  continuance  upon  the  per- 
sistence with  which  its  essential  sequences  and  relationships 
are  called  to  mind  in  the  years  that  follow  school  life.  In 
the  case  of  students  and  pupils  who  are  not  specialists,  with 
a  discipline  sought  through  too  much  subject  matter,  with 
inadequate  memory  drill  in  the  absence  of  effective  method, 
the  conscious  selection  of  relationships  and  sequences  that 
do  not  occasionally  recur  in  every-day  life  robs  them  of  the 
last  possibility  of  the  continuance  of  habits  which,  if  formed 
at  all,  have  been  bought  too  dear. 


2.  The  Lessening  Confidence  in  the  Theory  of  Formal 
Discipline  Itself 

To  this  conspicuous  failure  of  specific  discipline,  which 
could  not  but  weaken  confidence  in  the  formal  discipline  to 
which  it  is  a  condition,  and  from  which  most  educational 
2 


l8  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

workers  and  students  do  not  distinguish  it,  have  been  added 
serious  doubts  as  to  the  theory  of  formal  discipline  itself. 
Its  first  breakdown  came  when  the  new  psychology  demon- 
strated that  the  human  mind  does  not  consist  of  faculties 
which  can  be  trained  into  general  usefulness.  When  the 
memory,  the  intellect,  and  the  will  were  seen  to  be  composites 
of  specific  activities  and  habits,  formal  discipline  reduced  itself 
to  the  operation  of  a  habit  in  fields  of  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence other  than  that  in  which  it  is  acquired.  As  yet  the  mass 
of  thinkers  have  been  little  influenced  by  this  new  viewpoint 
of  the  specialist.  Although  when  once  familiar  with  it  they 
will  be  less  impressed  by  the  enumeration  of  particular  activ- 
ities in  so-called  disciplinary  subjects,  which  may  or  may  not 
become  habitual  or  may  or  may  not  be  carried  over,  they  as 
yet  are  more  or  less  under  the  influence  of  the  grandiloquent 
plea  that  the  study  of  mathematics  or  the  languages  trains 
the  human  intellect,  and,  therefore,  constitutes  the  most 
efl&cient  preparation  for  life. 

To  expert  students  of  education  the  results  of  experimental 
investigations  made  by  Professors  Thorndike,  Bagley,  and 
others,  tentative  though  they  are,  have,  on  the  whole,  been  a 
still  more  disturbing  factor.  The  mere  fact  that  a  particular 
group  of  mathematically  trained  individuals  compared  un- 
favorably in  exact  judgments  with  a  group  which  had  not 
been  mathematically  trained,  or  that  the  habitual  proportion 
of  neat  papers  in  arithmetic  did  not  result  in  neat  papers  in 
other  school  subjects,  is  perhaps  no  more  convincing  than  a 
statistical  investigation  which  shows  that  a  larger  proportion 
of  graduates  of  the  old  classical  course  at  a  certain  college 
have  been  successful  in  life  than  of  those  trained  in  the  vari- 
ous parallel  courses  included  in  the  modern  curriculum.  But 
the  champions  of  formal  discipline  have  been  placed  on  the 
defensive,  and  the  great  majority  of  educational  thmkers 
who  are  at  present  dominating  educational  theory  and  influ- 
encing educational  practice  have  at  least  gone  so  far  as  to  say, 
"You  may  learn  to  swim  by  learning  to  walk,  but  why  not 
learn  to  swim  by  learning  to  swim?" 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  19 

3.  The  Constantly  Increasing  Strength  of  the  Organized  Demand 
for  Direct  Preparation  for  Life 

The  popularity  of  Herbartianism  in  America  has  had  not 
a  little  to  do  with  the  development  of  this  state  of  mind.  A 
many-sided  mental  activity  may  result  from  the  adequate 
study  of  one  or  two  formal  subjects,  but  the  many-sided 
interest  dear  to  the  Herbartian  can  result  only  from  a  many-  j 
sided  course  of  study.  All  this,  however,  is  but  one  phase  of 
the  positive  factor  which  with  irresistible  force  is  storming 
the  weakened  defences  of  formal  discipline — the  organized 
demand  through  propaganda,  legislation,  and  confident, 
though  not  as  yet  convincingly  successful,  practice  for  direct 
preparation  for  each  specific  phase  of  life  through  the  teach- 
ing of  facts  and  activities  in  the  relationships  which  definitely 
and  certainly  further  it. 

It  is  substituting  for  the  maxim,  that  preparation  for  col- 
lege is  preparation  for  life,  the  equally  epigrammatic  proposi- 
tion that  preparation  for  life  should  prepare  for  college.  In 
place  of  first  attempting  to  form  the  man  and  then  the  citizen, 
it  insists  that  in  forming  the  citizen  directly  and  efficiently 
equipped  for  public  service,  specific  right  action,  healthful 
living,  industrial  efficiency,  and  the  ever-increasing  period  of 
leisure,  it  is  most  certainly  forming  the  man.  A  step  farther, 
and  it  will  urge  that  if  the  habits  peculiar  to  a  specialty  di- 
rectly useful  to  the  few,  may  become  indirectly  useful  to  the 
many  by  being  carried  over  into  the  ordinary  fields  of  knowl- 
edge and  experience,  it  is  more  pedagogic  and  economic  to 
teach  them  through  reorganized  courses  of  study  and  more 
effective  method,  in  the  relationships  which  make  them 
directly  and  certainly  useful  to  the  many,  with  a  view  to 
carrying  them  over  to  the  specialty  in  whose  narrower  sub- 
ject matter  they  will  be  useful  to  the  few. 

Each  succeeding  report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner 
of  Education  brings  to  light  new  organizations — local,  state, 
national,  and  international — for  the  furtherance  of  moral  and 
religious  instruction,  personal  and  public  hygiene,  patriotic 


20  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

citizenship,  and  manual  or  industrial  training.  Especially 
with  this  latter  end  in  view,  state  commissions  have  been 
appointed,  state  departments  of  education  reorganized,  large 

appropriations  voted,  text-books  written,  and 
rdating^of  ^^urses  of  study  revised.  In  the  high  schools  of 
academic  Pittsburgh  and  other  cities  botany  or  zoology,  as 
subject  first  year  electives,  have  given  place  to  a  "general 

^g^  ®^  °       science,"  in  which  certain  portions  of  physics, 

chemistry,  and  all  the  natural  sciences  are  com- 
bined to  furnish  the  facts  and  principles  most  closely  related 
to  every-day  experienced^  Even  the  term  "general  mathe- 
matics'' is  creeping  into  use.  The  high  schools  in  Berkeley, 
California,  and  Chelsea,  Massachusetts,  recognize  as  part 
of  their  curriculum  instrumental  music  taught  at  home,  if  the 
quality  of  the  instruction  is  approved  by  the  supervisor  of 
music. ^^  A  w^ell-known  university  allows  one  unit  of  credit 
each  for  editorship  and  the  management  of  college  periodicals. 
The  University  of  Wisconsin  has  taken  what  is  probably  the 
most  extreme  step  of  all  in  recognizing  forty  credits  in  the 
theory  of  physical  education  and  athletics  toward  the  one 
hundred  and  twenty  required  for  the  A.  B.  degree.^^ 

4.  Increasing  Willingness  for  Readjustment  on  the  Part  of 
Colleges  and  Universities 

As  yet,  even  in  the  face  of  this  tendency,  many  colleges 
and  universities  are  continuing  to  require  the  traditional  type 
of  preparation,  including  fixed  requirements  in  mathematics 
and  the  languages.  The  University  of  Chicago,  however,  is 
leading  the  way  to  a  more  general  recognition  in  college  en- 
trance requirements  of  subjects  essential  to  general  prepara- 
tion for  life,  and  the  Carnegie  Foundation,  after  attempting 
to  gain  a  consensus  of  expert  opinion,  recognizes  both  the 
reaction  toward  formal  discipline  and  the  demand  for  direct 
preparation  for  life  by  recommending  more  or  less  superficial 
examination  in  a  variety  of  subjects,  combined  with  an  in- 
creasingly severe  examination  in  mathematics  and  a  foreign 
language.^    This  will  probably  be  the  present  answer  to  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  21 

questionnaire  of  the  special  committee  of  New  York  High 

School  Teachers,  which  has  been  seeking  to  determine  to  what 

extent  higher  institutions  of  learning  in  the  East  are  willing 

to  follow  the  lead  of  the  West.^^ 

"May  we  ask,"  says  their  questionnaire,  "what,  in  your 

opinion,  would  be  the  objections,  if  any,  to  the  acceptance 

by  your  college  of  the  graduates  of  the  high  schools 

of  New  York  City?    Such  a  definition  of  entrance    Q^estion- 

11  1  11  <.  ^aire  of  the 

requirements  would  secure  to  the  college  a  four  New  York 

years'  preparatory  course  and  would  enable  the   High  School 

high  school  to  perform  its  function  as  a  tax-sup-   Asrociatfon. 

ported  institution.     Under  the  present  method 

of  defining  entrance  requirements,  students  who  have  not 

completed  our  courses  of  study  repeatedly  gain  admission 

to  college,  often  to  the  weakening  of  both  college  and  high 

school. 

"If  this  departure  seems  too  radical,  may  we  call  your 
attention  to  the  following  statements,  and  recommend  the 
modifications  in  present  entrance  requirements  which  seem  to 
us  most  urgent?  There  are  seven  distinct  lines  of  work  which 
we  believe  essential  to  a  well-rounded  high  school  course;  to 
wit:  language,  mathematics,  history  and  civics,  science, 
music,  drawing,  and  manual  training.  Girls  must  be  taught 
household  science  and  art.  Moreover,  we  believe  that  the 
twentieth  century  demands  that  the  high  schools  should  not 
cast  all  students  in  the  same  mold;  that  the  amount  of  science 
and  manual  training  which  is  sufficient  for  one  student  is 
utterly  inadequate  for  another;  and  that  a  training  for  busi- 
ness may  be  given  in  the  high  school  which  will  be  as  cultural 
and  as  respectable  as  any  other  course.  To  enable  the  high 
schools  to  adapt  secondary  education  to  the  varying  needs  of 
different  students  in  such  a  manner  as  to  meet  the  diverse 
demands  of  the  professions,  of  industry,  and  of  commerce, 
progress  seems  to  us  to  require — 

'\a)  The  reduction  in  the  number  of  so-called  'required' 
subjects,  together  with 

"(5)  The  recognition  of  all  standard  subjects  as  electives. 


22  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

"The  specified  entrance  requirement  of  two  foreign  lan- 
guages, the  meager  electives  in  science,  and  the  absence  of 
recognition  for  drawing,  music,  household  science  and  art, 
shopwork,  commercial  branches,  and  civics  and  economics, 
constitute  the  chief  difficulty. 

"We  should  like  to  see  it  possible  for  a  student  upon  enter- 
ing the  high  school  to  choose  Latin  or  German  or  French;  to 
confine  his  work  in  foreign  language,  during  his  high  school 
course,  to  one  such  language  in  case  the  remainder  of  his  time 
is  required  for  other  subjects;  and  to  find  at  the  end  of  his 
high  school  course  that  he  has  met  the  foreign  language 
requirements  of  whatever  college  he  may  choose  to  enter. 
We  should  like  to  see  no  discrimination  against  Latin  for  the 
course  leading  to  the  B.  S.  degree,  so  that  students  choosing 
any  language  may  enter  the  B.  S.  course. 

"We  should  like  to  see  the  following  subjects  recognized 
by  college  entrance  credits: 

"Music,  I  unit;  mechanical  and  freehand  drawing,  each 
I  to  I  unit;  joinery,  pattern  making,  forging,  machine-shop 
practice,  each  |  to  i  unit;  household  chemistry,  botany, 
zoology,  physiography,  applied  physics,  and  advanced 
chemistry,  each  i  unit;  modern  history,  i  unit;  civics  and 
economics,  each  |  to  i  unit;  household  science  and  art,  2 
units;  and  commercial  geography,  commercial  Islw,  stenog- 
raphy and  typewriting,  elementary  bookkeeping,  advanced 
bookkeeping,  and  accounting,  each  J  to  i  unit. 

"A  recent  study  of  entrance  requirements  shows  that  many 
colleges  are  already  requiring  only  one  foreign  language  for 
admission,  and  that  many  of  the  above  subjects  have  received 
recognition.'' 

The  majority  of  the  answers  received  from  the  colleges 
were  favorable  to  these  propositions,  the  most  antagonistic 
being  that  of  President  Emeritus  EHot.  The  most  common 
objection  advanced  was  against  the  reduction  in  language  re- 
quirements. For  example,  President  Garfield,  of  Williams 
College,  wrote,  "So  far  from  abandoning  the  work  in  language, 
I  should  much  prefer  that  students  entering  college  were 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  23 

through  with  the  beginners'  work  in  Latin  and  both  modern 
languages,  or  with  Latin  and  Greek  and  one  modern  language, 
but  I  realize  that,  at  the  present  time,  it  would  appear  to 
put  upon  the  school  too  great  a  burden  to  have  accomplished 
so  much."  Woodrow  Wilson  took  a  similar  position,  both 
on  the  ground  that  a  command  of  a  variety  of  languages  was 
highly  useful  and  that  it  is  most  readily  developed  in  child- 
hood. 

5.  Readjustment  Must  Not  Be  Left  to  Consensus,  hut  Must 
Be  Determined  by  Scientific  Research 

Obviously,  if  readjustment  is  left  to  consensus,  the  result- 
ing curriculum  will  be  a  parallelogram  of  conflicting  forces 
which  will  probably  involve  more  complete  domination  of 
the  college  by  the  high  school  than  the  high  school  has  ever 
been  dominated  by  the  college.  The  solution  of  so  fundamen- 
tal a  problem  must  not  be  left  to  consensus.  Here  as  else- 
where science  must  intervene;  not  a  pedagogy  all  aglitter 
with  generalities — a  peacock  plumage  borrowed  from  other 
branches  of  learning — ^but  an  independent  science,  with 
problems  which  other  sciences  may  suggest,  but  which  it  alone 
can  solve.  It  is  high  time  that  in  the  spiritual  domain  upon 
which  the  future  of  individuality,  the  family,  democracy, 
and  religion  ultimately  depends,  should  be  introduced  the 
same  analytic  and  experimental  methods  that  have  given  us 
not  only  atomic  weights,  electrons,  and  axis-cylinder  processes, 
but,  through  invention  and  manufacture,  complex  modern  life 
itself.  It  is  strange  that  education  is  almost  the  last  of  all 
the  great  branches  of  human  endeavor  to  accept  the  full  in- 
heritance of  the  Renaissance,  and  to  pass  from  the  unity 
and  compulsion  of  tradition  and  authority  through  the  pro- 
gressive but  disorganizing  dominance  of  individualism  into 
the  more  stable  unity  and  more  certain  compulsion  of  uni- 
versally valid  fact  checked  by  inductive  experimentation 
*  and  research. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  scientific  method  must  isolate  and 
vary  single  factors,  choose  between  alternatives,  determine 


24  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  count  relationships.  Self-activity  must  be  analyzed 
into  factors,  of  which  discipline  and  many-sidedness  are  only 
seemingly  antagonistic  parts.  Each  phase  of  the  educational 
aim  must  be  analyzed  into  specific  ends,  and  the  whole  range 
of  human  knowledge  and  experience  searched  through  and 
through  for  the  details  which  definitely  and  certainly  further 
each  in  the  most  many-sided  relationships  and  with  the 
greatest  likelihood  of  recurrence  in  every-day  life.  When 
included  in  the  educational  content  they  must  be  organized, 
not  merely  with  a  view  to  the  indirect  furtherance  of  these 
ends  through  general  knowledge  and  culture,  academic  habits 
and  general  discipline,  but  in  such  fashion  that,  whether 
facts  or  activities,  they  will,  through  gradual  accumulation 
and  reorganization,  be  definitely  and  certainly  associated 
with  all  others  that  tend  to  the  specific  aim  upon  whose  fur- 
therance their  direct  usefulness  depends.  Method  must  be 
so  scientifically  determined  that  there  shall  be  a  minimum  of 
waste  in  the  educational  process.  The  groupings  most 
effective  for  retention  and  for  thought,  the  form  of  presenta- 
tion best  adapted  to  the  thing  that  is  to  be  accomplished,  the 
extent  of  gradation  necessary  to  self-progress,  the  length  of 
the  interval  that  can  be  allowed  to  elapse  before  review,  these 
and  a  multitude  of  other  factors  must  be  measured  and  com- 
pared. 

The  formulation  of  these  problems  should  not  be  left  to 
individual  enthusiasts  or  local  effort  alone.  Just  as  certainly 
as  there  is  both  a  local  and  a  national  side  to  representative 
government,  is  there  both  a  local  and  a  national  side  to  the 
education  that  should  prepare  for  representative  govern- 
ment. The  functions  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Educa- 
tion should  be  so  extended  that  it  can  lead  in  the  necessary 
research.^^ 

6.  Direct  Preparation  for  Life  More  Certain  than  General  Dis- 
cipline,  and  Necessary  to  Make  it  Useful 
Meanwhile,  with  all  of  its  present  inefficiency,  checked  as 
its  operation  is  by  the  absence  of  the  analysis,  experimenta- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  25 

tion,  and  research,  without  which  it  cannot  be  most  effective, 
the  advantage  of  direct  over  indirect  preparation  for  Hfe  lies 
in  the  readily  apparent  fact  that  it  is  specific  and  therefore 
certain.  It  is  not  direct  unless  it  is  specific.  On  the  other 
hand,  any  effort  at  general  training  is  ineffective  which  falls 
short  of  habit,  which  fails  to  make  habit  continuing,  or  which 
fails  to  carry  it  over  into  the  fields  upon  which  even  its  indirect 
usefulness  depends.  More  than  this,  even  should  the  aca- 
demically well-disciplined  man  as  a  result  become  more  gen- 
erally efficient,  in  the  absence  of  the  direct  training  which 
makes  certain  his  good  citizenship  his  very  efficiency  may 
make  him  a  greater  menace  to  the  well  being  of  the  com- 
munity and  the  state.  Direct  instruction,  supplementing 
general  training  and  supplemented  by  it,  finally  comes  to  have 
the  irresistible  form  of  accumulation.  Fact  added  to  fact, 
activity  to  activity,  impression  to  impression,  month  after 
month  and  year  after  year,  must  in  the  end  achieve  their 
common  aim.  The  *^line  upon  line,  and  precept  upon  precept, 
here  a  little,  there  a  little''  of  Isaiah,  which  made  the  Jew  a 
true  Jew,  must  sooner  or  later  make  the  American  a  true 
American. 

7.  Either  Academic  or  Vocational  Specialization  Without 
Direct  Preparation  for  Life  Hostile  Both  to  Culture  and 
Democracy 
What  makes  the  present  an  educational  crisis  is  the  grave 
danger  that,  in  a  period  of  educational  readjustment  so  rapid 
and  apparent,  a  lessened  confidence  in  general  training  and 
general  culture,  with  a  growing  demand  for  direct  instruc- 
tion, may  result  in  two  almost  equally  unhappy  extremes — 
a  professional  specialization,  which  ignores  general  training 
and  culture,  and  through  reaction,  an  academic  specializa- 
tion, which,  whether  disciplinary  or  cultural,  refuses  to  relate 
itself  to  life.  The  effect  of  the  former  is  already  apparent, 
first,  in  the  numerous  vocational  schools  which,  requiring  an 
inadequate  cultural  preparation  either  through  high  school 
or  college,  devote  themselves  to  training  for  vocational  phases 


26  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

of  life;  and,  second,  in  the  colleges  where  the  cultural  courses 
and  the  specialized  academic  courses,  which  are  falsely  called 
cultural,  are  being  crowded  to  the  wall  by  electives  or  group 
electives  which,  because  they  are  preparatory  to  vocation, 
are  stigmatized  as  utilitarian  even  when  as  cultiural  as  those 
which  are  purely  academic. 

The  natural  result  is  a  reaction  within  the  college,  which, 
failing  to  see  that  both  culture  and  life  require  many-sided 
Direct  knowledge,  confuses  preparation  for  life  with  prep- 

preparation  aration  for  vocation,  and  demands  an  academic 
fusid^^th"  education  that  is  not  related  to  life,  in  place  of 
mere  prep-  demanding  a  many-sided  course  that  is  all  the 
aration  for  more  cultural  and  disciplinary  because  it  is  re- 
vocaion.  i^ted  to  life.  For  example,  Dean  West,  after 
asserting  that  the  proposed  Graduate  College  for  Princeton 
"is  in  spirit  and  substance  an  institution  for  humanizing 
knowledge  in  the  field  of  the  higher  liberal  studies,"  proceeds 
to  characterize  the  "half  truth  of  ^service,'  the  doctrine  that 
only  knowledge  of  obvious  use  is  worth  having,"  as  follows: 
"Under  this  notion  historical,  social,  and  political  studies 
come  to  be  pursued  as  a  kind  of  'contemporary  topics'  of  live 
interest;  the  study  of  literature,  even  of  our  own,  is  narrowed 
to  the  most  recent  periods,  thus  shutting  off  depth  of  back- 
ground; philosophy  descends  into  the  nursery  of  'child  psy- 
chology,' and  the  great  fundamental  sciences  are  neglected 
except  in  their  most  practical  applications."^^  Obviously, 
this  somewhat  limited  characterization  of  the  directly  useful 
is  not  intended  to  apply  to  graduate  schools,  but  to  high 
schools  and  colleges.  Indeed,  the  recommendations  of  the 
three  Amherst  graduates  of  the  class  of  1885,  so  favorably 
reviewed  by  Mr.  Roosevelt  in  The  Outlook,^^  would  result  in 
precisely  the  independent  "republica  litteraria"  that  Dean 
West  considers  ideal.  They  urge  that  a  wholly  academic 
institution  shall  be  created,  in  which  the  classical  course  shall 
be  modified  by  some  addition  to  science,  and  taught  by  the 
best  qualified  instructors  that  adequate  compensation  can 
attract,  to  a  limited  number  of  students  admitted  by  compet- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  27 

itive  examination.  There  is  room  for  a  graduate  school  in 
which  a  broadly  humanistic  training  in  the  higher  branches 
is  substituted  for  intensive  research  in  some  narrow  field  of 
knowledge,  if,  before  its  students  become  humanists,  they 
have  been  given  the  direct  training  for  life  in  all  of  its  many- 
sidedness,  which  should  precede  every  sort  of  specialization. 
But  heaven  help  democracy  and  culture  if  future  citizens 
must  choose  between  a  professional  training  that  excludes 
culture  and  the  culture  dreaded  by  old  Benjamin  Rush  when 
he  asserted: 

"The  study  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  languages  is  improper 
in  the  present  state  of  society  and  government  in  the  United 
States.  While  Greek  and  Latin  are  the  only  avenues  to 
science,  education  will  always  be  confined  to  a  few  people. 
It  is  only  by  rendering  knowledge  universal  that  a  republican 
form  of  government  can  be  preserved  in  our  country.  ... 
Men  are  generally  most  proud  of  those  things  that  do  not 
contribute  to  the  happiness  of  themselves  or  others.  Useful 
knowledge  generally  humbles  the  mind,  but  learning,  like 
fine  clothes,  feeds  pride,  and  thereby  hardens  the  human 
heart."i9 

Education  for  the  highest  citizenship  in  a  republic  demands, 
as  Mr.  Roosevelt  points  out,  the  addition  to  *^the  ordinary 
and  usually  more  necessary  form  of  training"  that  is  purely 
commercial  of  another  "which  should  be  undergone  simply 
for  the  sake  of  learning  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  state.'' 
This  may  be  found  in  Dean  West's  Graduate  School,  and 
is  found  here  and  there  in  others  where  academic  special- 
ization has  not  been  carried  so  far  as  to  produce  the 
"logician"  and  the  "rhetorician,"  who  five  centuries  after 
Montaigne  are  more  likely,  after  all,  to  be  gentlemen  than 
citizens. 

But  in  place  of  the  new  Amherst,  unless  it,  too,  becomes 
a  higher  school,  there  must  be,  both  preparatory  to  the 
period  of  specialization,  whether  professional  or  academic, 
and  paralleling  it  throughout,  a  variety  of  education  which 
will  directly  train  for  moral  and  healthful  living,  social  and 


2S  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

civic  service,  the  phases  of  industrial  life  common  to  all  in- 
dividuals and  such  employment  of  leisure  as  is  not  devoted 
to  the  specialized  culture  peculiar  to  an  academic  group. 

„           ^  For  so  broad  has  the  sum  total  of  humanistic 
ii«ven  aca- 
demic spe-  knowledge  become — ^knowledge  that  is  humanistic 
cialization  through  its  relationship  to  many-sided  modern 

fere  with"  ^^^^y  ^^  ^^^^  ^^  ^^  ^^^^  ^^  Greece  and  Rome — that 
general  cul-  there  has  come  to  be  specialization  in  culture  itself, 
ture.  ^j^(j  ^}jg  Amherst  plan  represents  specialized  cul- 

ture that  is  no  truer  and  infinitely  less  democratic  than  the 
sum  total  of  directly  useful  knowledge  and  activity,  which, 
while  not  connected  with  wage  earning  or  in  any  other  sense 
commercial,  would  constitute  a  social  bond  for  all  classes  of 
educated  individuals.  So  long  as  the  knowledge  which  is  a 
common  possession,  either  of  a  particular  social  group  or  the 
whole  of  educated  society,  has  a  many-sidedness  that  is  hu- 
manistic and  a  means  to  the  aesthetic,  it  is  cultural  whether  its 
many-sidedness  is  related  to  modern  or  to  ancient  life.  Pre- 
mature specialization,  whether  professional,  academic,  or 
subjective,  is  equally  hostile  both  to  general  culture  and  to 
preparation  for  life.  By  premature  subjective  specializa- 
tion is  meant  the  misleading  many-sidedness  of  a  free  elect- 
ive system  which,  on  the  plea  of  adaptation  to  individuality, 
excludes  much  that  all  students  should  possess  in  common, 
whether  as  part  of  a  common  culture  or  as  a  means  to  the 
direct  preparation  for  a  common  life  from  which  a  common 
culture  can  result. 

Obviously,  any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  formal  disciplin- 
ists  to  make  discipline  effective  through  concentration  upon 
two  or  three  branches  may  constitute  a  menace  both  to  gen- 
eral culture  and  to  many-sided  preparation  for  life.  In  the 
case  of  the  new  Amherst,  academic  specialization  would 
strongly  tend  to  diminish,  or  at  least  to  narrow,  general  cul- 
ture. The  problem  which  here  becomes  apparent  is  the  ex- 
tent to  which  a  many-sided  course  of  study  at  each  stage  of 
education  necessarily  excludes  specialization,  subjective, 
academic,  and  vocational. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  29 

8,  The  Mutual  Interdependence  of  Direct  Preparation  for  Life 
and  General  Discipline 

Before  it  can  be  discussed,  it  is  well  to  lay  down  the 
proposition  that  while  direct  preparation  for  life,  on  account 
of  its  specific  and  therefore  certain  realization  of 
the  educational  aim,  must  be  given  primary  place,  aration^in-" 
indirect  preparation  through  general  knowledge  adequate  in 
and  discipline  is  too  economical  a  factor  to  be  the  absence 
ignored.  Potentially,  there  is  more  economy  in  disdpirne. 
a  habit  or  relationship  which  may  be  generally 
applied  than  in  a  specific  activity.  The  advantage  of  the 
specific  activity  lies  in  its  certainty.  If  its  general  applica- 
tion is  made  as  certain,  or  even  highly  probable,  its  useful- 
ness is  multiplied.  The  fact  that  general  discipline  has  not 
been  commonly  attained  is  no  reason  why  it  cannot  be. 
Toward  its  achievement,  however,  concentration,  whether 
through  specialization  or  through  effective  pedagogical 
method  upon  the  most  directly  useful  subject  matter  in  the 
relationships  which  make  it  useful,  is  only  the  first  step. 
More  than  this,  specific  and  general  discipline  are  not  the 
only  forms  of  self-activity  which  certainly  figure  as  means 
to  the  development  of  independent  and  useful  individuality. 
The  first  step  toward  a  solution  of  the  general  educational 
problem,  that  does  not  represent  a  mere  resultant  of  conflict- 
ing opinions  and  theories,  is  an  analysis  of  self-activity  into 
all  forms  in  which  it  tends  to  develop  permanent  and  inde- 
pendent right  action.  JPerhaps  such  analysis  may  show  that 
culture,  discipline,  and  direct  preparation  for  life  are  not 
mutually  exclusive,  but,  on  the  contrary,  supplementary  and 
interdependent. 


CHAPTER  II 

AN  ANALYSIS  OF  "FORMAL  DISCIPLINE"  INTO  ESSENTIAL 
PHASES  OF  FORMAL  SELF-ACTIVITY— INCLUDING  GEN- 
ERAL DISCIPLINE 

I.  The  Aim  of  Education  Not  Self-activity,  hut  Useful  Self- 
activity 
While,  as  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Harris,  psychologically  all 
activity  of  the  self  is  self-activity ,20  self-activity  as  the  edu- 
Self-activity  cational  aim  means  useful  self-activity,  as  inde- 
need  not  be  pendent  and  intelligent  as  possible,  in  contrast 
with  mere  verbatim  memorizing  and  recollection, 
sensational  interest  or  attention,  and  mechanical  imitation. 
It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  the  act  of  learning — the 
method  by  which  self-activity  is  developed — should  never 
utilize  unintelligent  memorizing,  interest  or  imitation,  but 
rather  that  when  they  are  used  they  should  lead  as  directly 
as  possible  to  more  independent  self-activity.  The  extent 
to  which  they  should  be  utilized  in  a  given  case  consti- 
tutes a  series  of  important  problems  in  educational  method 
to  which  attention  will  be  directed  later  in  the  discussion. 
One  of  the  most  absurd  and  yet  hopeful  blunders  of  the  con- 
scientious teacher,  dominated  by  the  fallacy  that  all  activity 
on  the  part  of  the  learner  should  be  self-activity,  is  the  effort 
to  question  forgetful  children  into  the  recollection  of  a  fact 
that  should  be  told  them,  or  into  the  doing  of  something 
that  should  be  shown  them.  "What  is  the  capital  of  France? 
Can't  you  think?  It  begins  with  a  P.  What  kind  of 
plaster  did  we  use  the  other  day?"  Small  wonder  if  "self- 
activity"  responds  with  "porous"  in  place  of  "Paris."  Self- 
activity  is  the  ultimate  end  of  education,  its  crowning  achieve- 
ment, rather  than  an  exclusive  means  which  must  be  invari- 
ably used  in  every  stage  of  instruction. 

30 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  31 

Closely  allied  to  this  fallacy  is  another  equally  fundamental, 
the  assumption  that  an  immediate  self-activity,  dependent 
upon  the  stimulus  of  a  live  teacher,  satisfies  the   j^g^g 
educational  aim.    Dr.  Harris  has  paid  his  respects  temporary 
to  it  in  condemning  what  he  seemed  to  regard  as  self -activity 
a  necessary  misuse  of  the  oral  instruction  which   satisfy  the 
first  Horace  Mann,  and  still  more  influentially  educational 
Colonel  Parker,  accepted  as  the  chief  means  to  self-  ^^' 
activity:  "Oral  instruction  is  constantly  liable  to  destroy  the 
self-activity  of  the  pupil — that  is  to  say,  the  very  merit  claimed 
for  it  is  the  one  that  it  least  accomplishes.     The  pupil 
listens  to  the  teacher's  living  voice.     The  first  impressions 
are. all  he  gets,  even  if  he  takes  notes;  it  requires  time  to 
reflect.     The  pupil  is  dragged  from  one  point  to  another 
without  fully  digesting  either.   ...  He  does  not  acquire  the 
habit  of  regular  systematic  study,  even  though  he  may  foster 
brilliant,  flashy  habits  of  mind."^^ 

Dr.  Harris  is  right  in  so  far  as  he  anathematizes  the  ex- 
clusive development  of  merely  temporary  activities  which, 
being  dependent  upon  the  immediate  activity  of  the  teacher, 
do  not  appear  to  be  self-activity  at  all.  The  modern  recita- 
tion is  too  often  like  the  circus  procession.  The  pupils  are 
mentally  alert  because  they  are  interested,  in  place  of  being 
interested  because  they  are  self-active.  They  thrill  at  the 
lady  and  the  tiger,  listen  to  their  teacher's  steam  piano,  and 
follow  the  clowns  and  dromedaries  whithersoever  they  may 
lead.  But  after  a  while  the  procession  has  passed  by.  Has 
anything  permanent  and  useful  been  left  behind? 

One  sort  of  permanent  self-activity,  whose  highly  potential 

value  has  been  too  largely  ignored  as  a  factor  in  life  and  in 

education,  almost  invariably  results — impression. 

The  vague  and  intangible  feeling  that  sometimes  tional  inad- 

rises  to  emotion,  based  less  on  the  few  things   equacy  of 

we  remember  than  on  the  myriad  we  have  for-  '^ff^^®  "^' 

-^  pression. 

gotten,  made  stronger  and  stronger  as  it  is  re- 
enforced  by  successive  experiences  involving  every  possible 
form  of  activity,  but  all  resulting  in  the  same  impression, 


32  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

may  in  the  end  become  an  ideal,  a  point  of  view,  a  permanent 
interest  which  constitutes  character  and  determines  action. 
The  longing  for  home,  the  attitude  of  labor  toward  capital 
and  of  capital  toward  labor,  love  of  country,  the  fear  of 
strong  drink,  even  reverence  for  deity  itself,  result  far  less 
from  definite  recollection,  specific  habits,  or  general  discipline 
than  from  the  cumulative,  and  in  the  end  the  overwhelming, 
force  of  a  thousand  and  one  petty  forgotten  impressions 
which  unitedly  tend  to  a  common  end. 

The  temporary  self-activity,  dependent  upon  the  daily 
inspiration  of  the  teacher,  must  not  take  the  place  of  other 
Usefulness  essential  forms  of  self-activity  necessary  to  inde- 
of  emotional  pendent  and  useful  development,  for  some  of 
centers.  which,  by  the  way,  oral  instruction  is  indispen- 
sable. In  itself,  temporary  self-activity  constitutes  but  a 
highly  efficient  means  to  impression  which  becomes  individual 
and  permanent.  Its  usefulness  depends  upon  the  centers  to 
which,  through  accumulation,  the  impression  attaches  itself, 
the  vaguest  and  most  general  among  them  being  the  school. 
Love  of  school  may  be  as  playful  as  the  love  of  the  "magic 
ring"  so  delightfully  described  by  Kenneth  Graham,  and,  to 
use  President  Wilson's  figure,  attract  to  the  side  shows  rather 
than  to  the  main  tent,  but  if  useful  in  no  other  way,  it  is 
worth  while. 

Owing  to  the  anthropomorphic  tendency  of  children, 
pointed  out  by  Bain  in  his  criticism  of  "natural  punishment/ '^^ 
love  of  school  will  often  coincide  with  love  of  teacher.  Im- 
pression, however,  is  also  a  means  to  interest  in  school  activi- 
ties, in  branches  of  study,  in  specific  phases  of  the  educational 
aim,  and  in  the  fundamental  forms  of  self-activity  essential 
to  the  mastery  of  all. 

No  development  of  self -activity,  in  the  shape  of  "interest- 
ing" lessons  in  which  pupils  have  much  to  do  or  to  say,  is 
useless.  It  must  not,  however,  be  paraded  as  a  pleasant 
short  cut  to  education,  or,  through  its  apparent  efficiency, 
crowd  out  other  fundamental  forms  of  self-activity.  The 
aim  of  education  is  not  self -activity,  but  useful  self-activity; 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  33 

not  necessarily  self-activity  that  is  immediate,  but  that 
which  is  persistent  and  sure,  without  either  excluding  or 
being  excluded  by  that  which,  burning  brightly  for  a  moment, 
leaves  behind  it  the  same  vague  pleasureableness  as  a  drift- 
wood fire  or  a  sunshiny  day. 

2.  The    Necessity  for    Distinguishing    the    Educational    or 

Formal  Phases  of  Self-activity  from  Its   Psychological 

Forms 
At  the  very  outset,  then,  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish 
between  the  various  forms  of  self-activity  that  are  educational 
in  the  sense  of  being  essential  to  the  development  and  the 
right  use  of  all  kinds  of  self-activity — that  is,  between  the 
various  forms  of  self-activity  pedagogically  considered,  as 
distinct  from  the  various  kinds  of  self-activity  psychologically 
considered.  Much  confusion  has  resulted  from,  if  not  an 
unavoidable,  at  least  a  very  natural  interchange  of  pedagog- 
ical and  psychological  terms,  or  the  use  of  the  same  terms 
for  pedagogical  and  psychological  conceptions.  The  psy- 
chologist would  have  avoided  much  vexation  of  spirit  if  he 
had  left  "apperception"  to  the  pedagogue,  while  the  Her- 
bartian  has  had  reason  to  mourn  over  the  fact  that  "interest" 
is  a  highly  elastic  means  to  psychological  and  hence  to  peda- 
gogical expression.  The  present  discussion  does  not  concern 
itself  with  such  phases  of  mental  activity  as  judgment, 
imagination,  feeling,  and  will,  but  with  forms  of  self-activity 
by  which  they  are  to  be  usefully  developed,  and  through 
which  the  right  relationships  necessary  to  their  useful  exer- 
cise must  be  brought  about. 

3.  The  Five  Educational  or  Formal  Phases  of  Self -activity  that 

Can  Be  Distinguished  Through  the  Distinct   Kinds  of 
Relationships  from  Which  They  Result 
Obviously,  then,  these  fimdamental  forms  must  be  dis- 
tinguished from  each  other  through  the  distinct  kinds  of 
relationships  from  which  they  result.     An  idea  or  an  activity 
is  not  useful  in  itself,  but  through  its  recurrence  in  a  relation-  / 
3 


34  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

ship  which  furthers  some  phase  of  the  educational  aim.  In 
the  case  of  impression,  relationships,  most  of  which  are  evan- 
escent, accumulate  about  some  central  idea  or  activity. 
Their  sum-total  is  a  feeling  which  is  probably  in  part  identical 
in  its  basis  with  Kiilpe's  "direct  recognition,''^^  but  whose 
educational  significance  lies  in  its  rendering  the  common  idea 
or  activity  with  which  they  are  associated  certainly  and  per- 
manently as  attractive  or  unattractive  as  may  be  useful. 
The  relationships  themselves  are  improbable  of  recall — the 
forgotten  knowledge  and  experience  which  make  up  most  of 
life  in  school  and  out. 

On  the  contrary,  mere  remembrance  is  based  upon  the  vary- 
ing and  individual  relationships  which  happen  for  a  time  to 
hold  an  idea  or  an  activity  in  mind  and  through  which  it  may 
be  recalled.  They  will,  for  the  most  part,  differ  with  indi- 
vidual learners,  and  constitute  partial,  accidental,  and  even 
false  concepts,  no  matter  how  patiently  instruction  has  sought 
to  ensure  common  and  adequate  knowledge.  Their  sum  total 
is  information,  the  knowledge  that  is  power,  because  it  is  a 
mass  of  memory  and  apperceiving  centers  which  not  only 
prevent  ideas  and  activities  from  sinking  to  the  level  of  for- 
gotten knowledge,  but  serve  as  a  means  of  retaining  and 
classifying  new  experiences  that  make  information  more 
adequate. 

Varying  apperception,  the  third  phase  of  self-activity,  is 
based  upon  many-sidedness  of  relationship.  Through  it, 
an  idea  retained  in  one  or  more  relationships  is  made  recallable 
in  a  continually  increasing  number  of  relationships.  These 
relationships  may  be  as  individual,  accidental,  and  non-essen- 
tial, as  those  on  which  mere  remembrance  is  based — their 
function  being  to  ensure  variation  in  mental  content,  and, 
through  accumulation,  both  completeness  of  knowledge  and 
the  domination  of  specific  groups  or  systems  of  ideas. 

The  fourth  phase  of  formal  self-acti\dty  is  specific  disci- 
pline, not  merely  in  the  sense  of  the  system  peculiar  to  a  par- 
ticular academic  subject,  but  as  including  all  habits  and  groups 
of  habits.    Through  it  an  idea  is  certainly  and  permanently 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  35 

recalled  in  a  definite  relationship  or  group  of  relationships. 
It  includes  the  whole  gamut  of  invariable  relationships,  from 
the  simple  habits  and  complexes  of  habits  useful  in  direct 
preparation  for  life  or  within  an  academic  branch,  through 
those  necessary  to  general  discipline,  to  the  completest 
possible  interrelation  of  all  habits  that  dominate  life  and 
character,  whether  as  a  result  of  experience  or  instruc- 
tion. 

The  fifth  and  last  phase  of  formal  self-activity  is  general 
discipline — the  carrying  over  of  a  habit  to  a  field  of  experience 
other  than  that  in  which  it  is  developed.  It  must  be  sharply 
distinguished  from  the  old  "formal  discipline"  which,  through 
the  development  of  mental  "faculties,"  was  supposed  to  en- 
sure all  forms  of  mental  development.  It  is  neither  a  "gen- 
eral habit"  nor  the  inevitable  result  of  the  study  of  "formal" 
or  "disciplinary"  subjects,  but  certainly  results  only  when  a 
habit,  with  a  stimulus  general  enough  to  be  carried  over  into 
various  fields,  is  certainly  associated  with  the  conditions 
favorable  to  its  being  carried  over.  Dominant  among  these 
are  not  only  specific  discipline  itself,  but  the  cumulative  im- 
pression, mere  remembrance  and  varying  apperception  which 
the  old  formal  discipline  ignored. 

4.  Distinction  Between  Direct  and  Indirect  Furtherance  of  the 
Educational  Aim 

Of  these  five  forms  of  educational  self-activity,  only  two — 
impression  and  specific  discipline — are  based  upon  the  direct 
and  specific  relationships  that  alone  can  be  made  certainly 
useful.  The  habits  resulting  from  experience  are,  and  the 
impressions  may  be,  specific  and  certain,  but  not  necessarily 
useful.  On  the  other  hand,  no  relationships  are  certainly 
useful  unless  they  specifically,  and  hence  directly,  further 
some  phase  of  the  educational  aim.  It  is  obviously  the  func- 
tion of  instruction  to  make  certain  the  specific  relationships 
giving  rise  to  habits  and  impressions  essential  to  the  direct 
furtherance  of  each  phase.    More  than  this,  as  will  be  later 


36  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

demonstrated,  specific  and  certain  relationships  are  as  essen- 
tial to  useful  remembrance,  apperception,  and  general  dis- 
cipline as  the  varying  relationships  of  apperception  are 
necessary  to  the  multiplied  usefulness  of  specific  discipline. 
Mere  remembrance,  varying  apperception,  and  general 
discipline,  while  not  certainly  useful,  tremendously  multiply 
the  usefulness  of  the  specific  relationships  which  are. 

The  educational  aim,  then,  is  realizable  through  five  forms 
of  self-activity — directly  and  certainly  through  specific 
discipline  and  impression,  and  indirectly  and  potentially 
through  mere  remembrance,  varying  apperception,  and 
general  discipline.  The  problem  of  correctly  apportioning 
the  time  available  for  instruction,  between  specific  discipline 
and  the  indirect  furtherance  of  the  aim,  belongs  to  method. 
In  its  solution  three  facts  are  fundamental — first,  the  primary 
importance  of  specific  discipline  not  only  in  itself,  but  as  a 
condition  to  indirectly  useful  self-activity;  second,  the  limited 
number  of  specific  relationships  so  essential  that  they  must 
be  made  certain;  and  third,  the  limited  time  which,  from  the 
standpoint  of  attention  and  fatigue,  can  be  effectively  spent 
in  memory  drill. 

A  somewhat  more  detailed  discussion  of  each  of  these  five 
forms  of  educational  self-activity  will  make  clear  their  inter- 
relationship and  demonstrate  their  interdependence. 

5.  Cumulative  Impression,  a  Directly  Useful  Phase  of  Formal 
Self-activity 

While  in  a  school  where  instruction  is  carried  on  by  a 
teacher  intelligent  enough  to  be  misled  by  the  will-o'-the- 
wisp  of  immediate  and  temporary  interest,  edu- 
klmediate  nation  may  become  too  nearly  a  passing  show, 
and  tern-  in  which  impression  for  the  most  part  narrows 
porary  itself  to  a  love  of  teacher  or  of  school,  other  forms 

'Educational.  ^^  educational  self-activity  will  be  present,  and 
impressions    will    be    usefully    associated    with 
other  things  than  school.    In  fact,  precisely  the  same  type 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  37 

of  instruction  that  predominantly  results  in  mere  impression, 
also  fosters  varying  remembrance  and  apperception.  In  this 
it  is  educational  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  only  indirectly  so.  It 
fails  to  develop  specific  discipline.  Failing  to  result  in  specific 
discipline,  and  consequently  in  general  discipline,  even  its 
indirect  furtherance  of  the  aim  is  inadequate. 

This  combination  of  variable  impression,  remembrance, 
and  apperception  constitutes  what  W.  H.  Payne  was  accus- 
tomed to  call  the  "tonic''  value  of  education.^  If  developed 
at  the  expense  of  discipline,  its  finished  product  is  the  indi- 
vidual justly  referred  to  by  Dean  West  as  educated  but  not 
intelligent.^^ 

Assuming  that  impression  is  developed  with  due  regard 

to  the  other  forms  of  educational  self-activity,  the  chief 

danger  is  that  it  will  not  be  so  centered  and  _ 

^  ,  ...  .  -  Impression 

accumulated  as  to  aid  m  ensurmg  the  perma-   can  operate 

nent  viewpoints,  ideals,  and  motives  essential  to  against  the 
the  various  phases  of  the  educational  aim.  The  ®.^<^^*^onal 
cumulative  impressions  left  behind  by  the  school 
work  may  and  should  result  in  permanent  interest  in  various 
branches  of  study.  But  they  must  involve  something  more 
than  a  love  of  school  or  even  of  the  academic  subjects  that 
are  taught  there.  In  fact,  a  teacher  may  leave  behind  him 
impressions  that  result  in  love  for  him  and  respect  for  his 
ideals  without  developing  the  love  for  essential  school  sub- 
jects at  all.  One  of  Mr.  Quick's  old  Cranleigh  boys,  after 
stating  that  all  his  subsequent  life  had  been  "stayed  by  his 
kindly  hand  and  cheered  by  his  kindly  voice,"  goes  on  to  say, 
"I  was  also  in  Mr.  Quick's  class,  though  for  what  subject  or 
subjects  I  have  forgotten."^^ 

By  far  the  most  important  results  of  the  impressions 
made  certain  by  the  school  are  the  ideals,  the  viewpoints, 
the  attitudes  of  mind,  and  the  tendencies  that  directly 
further  the  details,  which  together  constitute  the  various 
specific  phases  of  the  educational  aim.  Just  what  these 
details  are,  analysis  of  the  various  phases  must  determine. 
For  example,  it  is  highly  essential  to  the  furtherance  of  the 


SS  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

aim  that  the  form  of  self-activity  now  being  discussed  as 
impression  should  play  its  part  in  developing  faith  in  divine 
providence,  determined  opposition  to  anything  which 
menaces  the  public  health,  an  earnest  belief  in  the  doctrine 
of  equal  rights  as  opposed  to  special  privilege,  or  any  other 
detail  necessary  to  right  living,  good  health,  industrial  effi- 
ciency, social  service,  good  citizenship,  and  the  proper  em- 
ployment of  leisure.  Conscious  effort  in  the  formal  educa- 
tional process  to  make  impressions  provoke  interest  in  such 
details  has  of  necessity  been  occasional  and  limited,  in  the 
absence  of  the  analysis  which  alone  can  determine  what 
details  are  necessary.  At  the  worst,  the  cumulative  force  of 
impression  is  used  against  the  school,  or,  through  force  of 
external  experience,  in  favor  of  activities  that  are  conflicting 
with  or  hostile  to  its  activities.  On  the  one  hand,  dislike  of 
teacher,  lack  of  interest  in  studies,  impatience  of  routine, 
reaction  from  purely  academic  existence,  discomfort  from 
unhealthful  or  unnatural  environment — hourly,  daily,  week 
after  week,  month  after  month,  and  year  after  year;  on  the 
other,  love  of  play,  the  joy  of  motor  activity,  the  social 
companionship  of  chums  or  the  "gang,"  the  longing  to 
make  money,  moving  pictures,  the  theater,  the  lure  of  real 
life. 

Sometimes  the  solution  seems  easy  when  the  introduction 
of  some  one  of  the  many  possible  sources  of  interest  into  the 
school  makes  the  school  interesting.  It  is  a  temptation,  for 
example,  to  look  upon  manual  training  as  a  panacea,  and  to 
depend  upon  it  to  hold  the  motor  and  construction-loving 
boy  to  his  task.  The  sympathetic  teacher,  vocational 
motive,  school  city,  each  often  serves  to  remove  a  hostile 
condition  within  the  school  and  at  the  same  time  to  check 
antagonistic  forces  without.  Such  solutions  are  but  partial, 
and  substitute  favorable  and  even,  in  the  case  of  particular 
individuals,  necessary  conditions  to  success  for  the  elements 
essential  to  the  useful  development  of  all.  Pupils  may  love 
their  teacher,  their  school,  and  their  work,  and  students  their 
college  without  gaining  the  permanent  impressions  funda- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  39 

mental  in  the  realization  of  the  aim  to  which  teacher,  school, 
and  work  are  but  conditions  and  means.  Desirable  as  inter- 
est in  the  whole  school  environment  is,  it  is  better 
that  it  should  be  lacking  than  that  it  should  be  nmst  r^^°^ 
permitted  to  take  the  place  of  a  constantly  in-  enforce  the 
creasing  attraction  toward  what  is  useful  in  life  ^^^^  useful 
and  antagonism  for  what  is  evil.  When  the 
learner,  day  by  day  and  year  after  year,  is  consciously  accu- 
mulating the  impressions  which  directly  and  certainly  make 
for  respect  for  law  and  the  equal  rights  of  others,  a  love  of 
justice,  truth  and  honesty,  devotion  to  all  necessary  work, 
interest  in  the  common  good,  the  useful  feelings  which,  if 
persistently  enough  and  effectively  enough  sought,  will  in 
the  end  dominate  life  and  character,  he  will  in  most  cases 
come  to  love  the  environment  with  which  such  teachings  are 
associated.  None  the  less,  as  Compayre  says  of  pupils  in 
relation  to  school  discipline,^^  and  Miinsterberg  of  those  to 
whom  through  heredity  it  is  easiest  to  lead  criminal  lives,^^ 
every  one  of  us  has  the  right  to  the  sum  total  of  influences, 
conditions,  and  means,  whether  essential  or  non-essential, 
weak  or  potent,  that  tend  toward  the  right. 

Of  course,  interest — the  feeling  of  attraction  or  repulsion 
— is  incidentally  and  variably  associated  with  ideas  and 
activities,  through  mere  remembrance  and  ap-  The  efficacy 
perception,  as  it  is  definitely  associated  through  of  emotional 
specific  and  general  discipline.  But  mere  re-  ^®^*®^^- 
membrance,  with  its  incidental  feeling,  and  apperception, 
with  its  changing  interest  in  many  relationships,  cannot 
ensure  the  continual  repetition  of  experiences  certain  to 
stimulate  in  ever-increasing  degree  a  common  feeling  in  a 
common  idea  or  activity.  Specific  discipline  must  first, 
through  certainly  associating  exceptionally  impressive  in- 
cidents or  passages  with  the  common  centers,  ensure  for  it 
a  definite  and  permanent  emotional  nucleu,  about  which 
the  mass  of  vague  and  forgotten  impressions  can  multiply. 
Such  an  association  transforms  an  idea  into  an  ideal  whose  ap- 
pUcation  becomes  increasingly  sure.  And  every  application 


40  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

of  such  an  idea  or  activity  through  general  discipHne  either 
adds  to  the  fixed  emotional  nucleus  or  to  the  impressions 
for  which  it  is  the  center.  The  fimdamental  ideals,  points 
of  view,  and  motives  in  life  must  not  be  left  either  to  chance 
or  to  the  certain  recall  of  a  few  unemotional  facts.  It  will 
take  more  than  scientific  temperance  instruction  to  compel 
total  abstinence,  or  than  the  principles  of  civil  government 
to  bring  about  good  citizenship.  But  impression  re-enforced 
by  habit  and  habit  by  impression  can  come  to  have  the  force 
of  instinct  and  heredity. 

6.  Initial  Remembrance,  the  Phase  of  Formal  Self-activity 
Which  Holds  Ideas  Until  They  Can  Be  Variably  Ap- 
perceived  and  Specifically  Memorized 

The  second  form  of  self-activity,  from  an  educational 

rather  than  a  philosophical  or  psychological  viewpoint,  is 

indirect    recognition    or    initial    remembrance. 

Initial  re-  Back  of  direct  recognition  lies  the  same  mass  of 
membrance  .      *^  i  .  i  i     . 

usually  forgotten    experiences    which,    concentrated    m 

based  on  some  particular  direction,  constitute  impression 
cents.  ^°^"  ^  ^^  sense  in  which  we  have  just  discussed  it. 
It  is  in  their  physiological  basis  that  Klilpe  finds 
a  possible  explanation  for  the  immediate  judgment  of  famil- 
iarity.^^ In  contrast  with  this,  back  of  indirect  recognition  or 
initial  remembrance,  lies  some  definitely  recallable  associa- 
tion. It  does  not  at  all  matter  what  it  is,  but  only  that  it  is 
definite  and  readily  comes  to  mind.  Unless  it  has  as  its 
basis  a  single  relationship,  it  involves  but  partial  compre- 
hension and  is  dependent  upon  a  partial  concept.  The  two 
distinguishing  characteristics  of  the  partial  concept  are, 
first,  the  fact  that  it  is  partial,  and,  therefore,  gives  rise  to  the 
initial  remembrance  that  may  ultimately  lead  the  way  to  an 
adequate  concept  and  fuller  comprehension;  second,  the 
fact  that  though  definite,  in  so  far  as  it  is  dependent  on  ordi- 
nary experience,  it  is  accidental,  and  consists  of  relationships 
which  vary  with  occasions  and  individuals. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  41 

This  variability  is  equally  true  of  the  relationships 
upon  which  recollection  depends — the  chain  of  associa- 
tions that  determine  ordinary  thought.  Any  one  of  the 
relationships  ensuring  remembrance  may  result  in  recall, 
and  may,  for  the  time  being,  constitute  the  remembrance 
itself. 

Investigations  of  Mr.  Earl  Barnes  and  others  have  shown 
that  the  minds  of  developing  children  are  full  of  such  partial 
concepts.2^  The  monk  is  not  the  self-sacrificing  member  of 
a  religious  order,  but  the  chipmunk  or,  better,  the  individual 
who  sends  out  St.  Bernard  dogs  to  rescue  children  lost  in  the 
snow.  The  clock  is  something  that  ticks  or  tells  the  time. 
Sometimes,  as  in  one  instance  in  President  HalFs  well-known 
study,  a  concept  is  incorrect  because  it  is  partial.^®  The  un- 
familiar cow  was  supposed  to  be  no  larger  than  the  familiar 
mouse.  Quite  often  the  concept  is  both  partial  and  incorrect, 
as  when  a  high-school  girl  who  had  heard  of  pirates  defined 
a  pilot  as  a  sea  robber.  Even  here,  as  is  usually  the  case, 
there  is  a  partial  truth  in  the  absurd  misconception.  Both 
pilot  and  pirate  are  spelled  with  pi  and  /  and  have  to  do  with 
the  sea. 

The  laugh  that  rises  from  such  misapprehension  is  generally 
turned  against  the  school.  Its  work  is  not  being  well  done. 
Children  are  attempting  studies  which  are  too  ^j^  knowl- 
difficult,  learning  too  fast,  or,  at  any  rate,  being  edge  can- 
imperfectly  taught.  The  usual  effect  of  such  in-  ^^t  be 
vestigations  as  that  of  Mr.  Barnes  has  been  agi-  *  ^^^^  ^' 
tation  for  more  adequate  knowledge.  *'Let  us  see  that  chil- 
dren know  thoroughly  what  they  get,  even  if  they  get  but 
little.  Every  word  in  the  reading  lesson  must  be  spelled 
and  defined.  Pupils  must  be  questioned  into  complete 
comprehension  of  all  which  they  pretend  to  know  at  all." 
More  than  this,  the  scientist  of  a  certain  type  steps  in  and 
insists  upon  exact  knowledge.  Physicians  scoff  at  physi- 
ology primers  because  learners  in  pinafores  speak  of  the 
heart  as  a  pump.  Physiographers  despair  because  young- 
sters look  upon  volcanoes  as  mountains. 


42  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Nothing  could  be  more  fatal  to  self-activity  in  general 

than  insistence  upon  completeness  of  comprehension.     The 

„   ^.  ,  number  of  ideas  that  can  be  remembered  in  all 

Partial  con-     .  .^        .     .       .  .  ,    _ 

cepts  the       the  specinc  relationships  necessary  to  define  them 

very  germs  is  relatively  small.  Most  concepts  of  adults  as 
growth.*^^  well  as  children  are  not  only  recognizable,  but 
capable  of  recall  only  through  some  partial,  non- 
essential, and,  frequently  enough,  false  or  absurd  relation- 
ship. It  is  the  function  of  initial  memorizing  or  mere  remem- 
brance, based  as  it  is  upon  any  relationships  at  all,  to  hold 
an  idea  in  mind  and  to  make  its  recollection  possible  and 
definite.  Such  a  simple  relationship,  however,  constitutes 
the  very  germ  of  mental  growth.  Without  it,  fuller  self- 
activity  would  be  impossible.  Partial  concepts  are  points  of 
attraction  for  all  related  ideas.  They  constitute  association 
centers,  apperceiving  groups  which  reach  out  after  new  ex- 
perience. Facts,  activities,  impressions  that  would  other- 
wise be  forgotten,  cluster  about  them.  In  a  broad  sense, 
education  itself  can  be  looked  upon  as  the  addition  of  one 
relationship  after  another  to  a  partial  concept  until  it  is  rela- 
tively complete.  The  greater  the  number  of  partial  concepts, 
the  greater  the  opportunity  for  development.  The  absence 
of  a  partial  concept  leaves  many  an  experience  without  a 
means  to  the  development  of  self-activity.  One  helps  in 
retaining  and  developing  the  other.  Without  the  interrela- 
tionships that  come  to  exist  between  the  many,  the  few  are 
more  likely  to  be  forgotten.  "To  him  that  hath  shall  be 
given,  from  him  that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  even  that 
which  he  hath.''  Even  in  adult  life,  in  the  most  complete 
and  most  useful  forms  of  self-activity,  the  partial  concept 
must  be  the  point  of  departure.  The  flash  of  temporary  in- 
sight, the  perception  of  a  new  relationship,  more  readily 
forgotten  because  it  is  the  product  of  accident  or  inspiration, 
may  lead  to  the  writing  of  a  Thanatopsis,  the  invention  of  the 
telephone,  or  the  building  up  of  a  hypothesis  that  explains 
the  movements  of  the  celestial  spheres.  No  wonder  that  Dr. 
Holmes  exclaims,  "When  found  make  a  note  of  it." 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  43 

The  more  stories  that  are  told  to  children,  the  more  they 
hear  of  intelligent  conversation,  the  more  they  read  or  have 
read  to  them  from  miscellaneous  books  and  periodicals,  the 
more  they  travel,  hear  lectures,  and  see  moving  pictures; 
in  short,  the  broader  their  environment  and  the  more  many- 
sided  their  experience,  the  greater  the  opportunity  for  partial 
concepts.  The  better  the  native  retentiveness  of  the  chil- 
dren, the  more  they  can  profit  from  the  opportunity.  It  is 
an  important  function  of  the  home,  the  press,  the  church, 
and  public  amusements  to  provide  all  children  with  this 
broad  environment  and  many-sided  experience. 

In  the  school,  the  resulting  partial  concepts  and  partial 
comprehension  should  not  be  scoffed  at  as  incorrectness  and 
foolishness,  or  mourned  over  as  failure,  but  wel- 
comed as  essential  means  to  still  further  devel-    "^n?  partial 
opment.    At  every  stage  of  advancement  the    concepts  to 
learner  should  be  tested  for  incidental  information    ^e  taught 
as  well  as  for  adequate  knowledge.     He  should    ^^^ 
be  asked  of  each  idea,  not  only — do  you  remember 
it  in  this  specific  relationship  or  group  of  relationships,  but, 
in  what  relationships  do  you  remember  it?    In  college  and 
university,  as  well  as  in  elementary  school,  instructors  should 
make  sure  that  every  individual  is  getting  not  only  the  few 
essential  ideas  in  the  specific  relationships  which  make  them 
useful,  but  that,  in  addition,  he  is  getting  in  each  branch  he 
is  studying  as  many  ideas  as  possible,  no  matter  what  the 
relationships  in  which  he  holds  them.     There  is  the  same 
distinction  between  a  vacant  mind  and  one  filled  with  inci- 
dental and  partial  concepts  as  between  a  desert  and  a  garden. 

This  recognition  of  the  partial  and  the  variable  may,  at 
first  thought,  appear  to  encourage  the  carelessness  in  teaching 
to  which  the  presence  of  partial  concepts  in  children's  minds 
has  commonly  been  attributed.  On  the  contrary,  it  will 
result  in  far  more  careful  teaching.  It  is  the  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  a  particular  relationship  or  group  of  relation- 
ships, directly  useful  to  the  aim  or  to  some  branch  of  study, 
must  be  repeated  with  sufficient  frequency  to  ensure  the 


44  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

specific  discipline  involved  in  their  exact  and  ready  recall  by 
the  whole  mass  of  pupils  taught  in  common.  Otherwise,  if 
remembered  at  all,  they  will  not  only  be  partial  and  include 
non-essential  parts,  but  will  vary  with  individuals,  and  fre- 
quently add  to  themselves  or  have  substituted  for  them  acci- 
dental or  absurd  relationships.  Just  what  relationships 
should  be  readily  and  exactly  recalled  must  eventually  be 
determined  through  research  into  their  relative  usefulness; 
and  just  what  number,  through  research  into  the  amount  of 
time  that  can  be  effectively  spent  each  day  in  the  memorizing 
of  new  material  or  the  repetitions  and  reviews  necessary  to 
adequate  retention. 

Haphazard  partial  concepts  cannot  be  recognized  except 
through  contrast  with  partial  relationships  that  are  essential, 
and  useful  relationships  not  partial,  the  necessity  for  whose 
ready  and  exact  recall  through  adequate  repetition  is  thereby 
emphasized. 

If  Mr.  Bain  is  right  in  his  assertion  that  memorizing  is  the 
most  exhaustive  phase  of  mental  work,^^  ample  time  will  be 
left  for  the  development  of  impression  and  mere  remembrance 
through  the  presentation  of  a  multitude  of  facts  and  activities 
which  cannot  be  certainly  memorized  in  exact  relationships. 
It  is  at  this  point  that  realization  of  the  value  of  mere  remem- 
brance most  directly  tends  to  more  careful  teaching.  Re- 
membrance is  most  useful  when  the  relationships  to  which  it 
is  due  are  true  and  essential  relationships.  Here  the  formal 
step  in  the  recitation  which  the  Herbartians  have  popularized 
as  "preparation"  ensures  carefulness.  It  is  the  calling  to 
mind  in  the  pupils  of  past  experiences,  which  can  be  usefully 
related  to  what  is  to  be  taught.  It  seeks  to  detect  the  partial 
concepts  which  will  be  most  useful,  in  case  they  exist,  and,  by 
stirring  them  into  activity,  not  only  tends  to  give  the  new 
experience  a  greater  likelihood  of  remembrance,  but  to  deter- 
mine the  relationships  in  which  it  will  be  remembered.  The 
partial  concept,  if  it  is  a  partial  one,  is  made  selective  and 
more  complex;  the  new  one  is  remembered  in  useful  re- 
lationships. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  45 

But,  notwithstanding  the  carefulness  which  makes  certain 
and  definite  by  adequate  repetition  as  many  useful  relation- 
ships as  possible,  and  which  through  "prepara- 
tion"  gives  greater  likelihood  and  usefulness  to  membraiice 
remembrance,  much  that  is  taught  will  be  re-  useful,  even 
membered,  if  remembered  at  all,  through  non-  ^rm^iTd*^^" 
essential,  accidental,  or  absurd  relationships  with 
recollections  which  the  teacher  did  not  touch  in  spite  of  his 
skilful  questioning,  or  which  he  incidentally  revived  with- 
out knowledge  of  their  revival  or  their  existence.  After  all, 
remembrance  is  useful  as  mere  remembrance.  The  partial 
concept  may  become  complete,  the  ridiculous  relationship 
will  be  forgotten  or  remembered  as  an  amusing  blunder;  but 
the  indispensable  condition  to  the  future  usefulness  of  an 
idea  or  activity  is  that  somehow  or  other,  in  some  way  or 
other,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind  long  enough  for  it  to  be  made 
fast  by  one  incidental  association  after  another. 

The  teacher  should  never  deliberately  choose  the  non-  ^ 
essential  or  accidental  relationships  where  a  more  useful  ong 
can  be  formed.  But  all  children  should  be  given  in  school 
the  many-sided  experience  that  more  fortunate  children 
get  outside.  Ultimately,  all  should  get  it  by  every  possible 
instrumentality  outside. 

It  is  not  merely  many-sided  experience  that  is  needed,  but 
many-sided  experience  so  directed  and  controlled  that  it  is 
most  likely  to  be  useful.     Travel,  family  trips,   j^^^^ 
school  excursions,  collecting  expeditions,  visits  for  useful 
to    museums    and    art    galleries,    stereographs,   many-sided 
stereopticon    views,    realistic    fiction,     dramas, 
moving  pictures  that  do  not  present  what  would  be  punished 
or  suppressed  in  real  life  as  immoral  or  illegal ;  plenty  of  inter- 
esting periodicals  and  newspapers,  with  their  good  and  evil; 
collections  of  all  sorts  of  specimens,  changing  as  children's 
interests  change;  all  sorts  of  books  which,  not  being  juven- 
ilized,  give  partial  concepts  of  useful  wholes;  sermons  and 
lectures  not  fully  within  the  comprehension  and  interest  of 
children  but  not  too  long;  oratorios,  musicals,  luncheons. 


46  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

parties  and  receptions;  conversations,  discussions,  and  oppor- 
tunities to  listen  to  conversations  and  discussions  not  fully 
understood;  above  all,  patient  and  intelligent  replies  to  child- 
ish questions;  all  these  and  other  experiences  should  not  only 
be  brought  about,  if  necessary,  by  or  through  the  school  to 
children,  who  without  such  intervention  would  lead  abnormal 
"shut  in,"  crippled,  oriental  lives,  but  should  be  consciously 
selected  and  directed  with  a  view  to  possible  relationships 
which  may  further  the  various  details  of  the  several  phases 
of  the  aim.  As  partial  concepts,  the  roots,  the  seeds,  and  the 
sucklings  of  self-activity  are  formed  and  held  in  children's 
minds  by  all  sorts  of  inconceivable  and  kaleidoscopic  catchalls 
and  garden  spots,  it  is  easier  to  determine  what  is  to  be  given 
the  chance  of  taking  root  than  what  it  is  to  be  rooted  to. 

Finally,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  mere  remembrance 
is  in  itself  a  pleasurable  form  of  self-activity.  It  is  as  inter- 
esting to  know  in  part  as  to  fully  know  where  one, 
sideZness  ^^^  ^^^  ^™^  being,  takes  the  part  for  the  whole. 
of  experi-  Especially  with  children,  ready  recognition  of  the 
ence  essen-  experience  as  it  appears  to  them,  ability  to  in 
tialinthe  r     i.-  A.  xi.  ^-  i, 

college.         some  fashion  or  other  answer  the  question  who, 

what,  when,  or  where,  indeed,  to  answer  any 
question  at  all,  is  part  of  the  joy  of  living.  This  many-sided- 
ness is  as  necessary  in  higher  education  as  in  the  training  of 
the  child.  While  the  "side  shows"  of  the  college  course  must 
not  take  the  place  of  the  "main  tent,"  the  main  tent  must  not 
exclude  the  side  shows.  College  life  must  be  many-sided, 
not  only  for  the  sake  of  recreation,  but  as  a  means  to  the 
mere  remembrance  and  varying  apperception  which  must 
supplement  specific  discipline  if  education  is  to  be  complete. 
Enjoyment  of  music,  art,  and  the  drama — where  possible, 
through  membership  in  musical  or  dramatic  club — reading 
along  lines  of  individual  interest,  membership  in  literary 
societies,  participation  in  political  activities,  leisure  for  ramble 
in  country  or  woodland,  above  all,  participation  in  social  life, 
not  merely  in  the  democratic  sense  proposed  by  Dr.  Wilson, 
but  in  that  of  a  natural  and  congenial  social  group,  far  from 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  47 

being  tabooed  as  a  menace  to  the  real  work  of  the  college, 
should  be  required  and  compelled  as  an  essential  part  of  it. 
College  life  should  only  in  part  become  a  mechanical  routine. 
The  boyish  prejudice  against  the  ^'greasy  grind,"  meritorious 
as  his  achievements  may  be,  has  again  and  again  been  justi- 
fied by  the  failure  of  valedictorian  and  salutatorian  to  carry 
over  their  efficiency  from  school  to  life.  To  many-sided 
application,  many-sided  knowledge  and  experience  are  as 
essential  as  routine.  If  modern  education  cannot  include  and 
dominate  every  phase  of  life,  as  Rabelais  made  it  include,  and 
dominate  the  daily  experience  of  Pantagruel,  it  must  at  least 
see  that  due  recognition  is  given  to  all  that  tends  to  develop 
the  versatile  and  imaginative  man  of  affairs. 

7.  Varying  Apperception,  the  Phase  of  Formal  Self -activity 
which  Ensures  the  Many-sidedness  of  an  Idea  and  Its 
Interconnection  with  Others  Not  Permanently  Related  to  It 

In  its  most  general  sense  of  many-sided  relationship 
apperception  is  far  more  inclusive  than  in  the  sense  to  which 
I  have  applied  the  term  varying  apperception.  General 
discipline  may  itself  be  regarded  as  a  form  of  apperception 
— the  ''generalization"  and  "appHcation"  of  the  Herbartians. 
Specific  discipline,  as  it  is  developed  into  complicated  systems 
of  thought  in  which  groups  of  associations  react  as  certainly 
as  one,  is  apperception.  But  in  the  latter  form  apperception 
is  unvarying,  and  in  the  former  variable  only  in  its  operation. 
It  is  uncertain,  but  specific. 

Apperception  itself  may  be  specific  in  its  presentation — 
and,  so  far  as  it  is  a  means  to  instruction,  should  be, — but  a 
group  of  relationships  when  once  presented  in  some  specific 
form  will  either  give  rise  through  unvarying  repetition  to 
specific  discipline  or,  in  its  absence,  become  apperception 
that  is  varying. 

The  partial  concept,  held  in  mind  by  mere  remembrance, 
through  lack  of  recall  sinks  to  a  mere  impression  which  may 
or  may  not  be  useful.  If  sufficiently  recalled  to  be  perma- 
nently retained,  it  either  tends,  through  unvaried  repetition 


48  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

in  essential  relationships  that  have  been  added  to  it,  to  become 
an  adequate  or  at  least  a  definite  concept  and  a  means  to 
specific  discipline,  or,  through  repetition  in  varying  relation- 
ships, to  become  a  full  concept,  and  hence  a  means  to  var3dng 
apperception,  and,  as  will  be  demonstrated  later,  to  general 
discipline  itself.  Effective  education  demands  both  unvaried 
and  variable  repetition,  and  each  results  from  incidental  ex- 
perience. 

The  only  educational  value  possessed  by  varying  apper- 
ception, as  distinct  from  discipline,  lies  in  its  variability,  in 
.  the  fact  that  through  it  any  idea  in  the  human 

penfeptfon^"  mind  may  be  related  to  all  others,  and  a  specific 
the  chief  relationship  find  its  accustomed  stimulus  in  fields 
means  to  ^£  experiences  remote  from  the  one  in  which  it  is 
formed.  It  is  the  main  correlating  force  in  edu- 
cation, establishing  a  thousand  and  one  different  sorts  of 
relationships  for  each  idea  figuring  in  individual  experience. 
It  is  the  fact  that  through  it  an  idea  may  recall  a  multitude  of 
other  ideas,  or  be  recalled  by  any  one  of  them,  that  gives  it 
its  educational  function.  Its  principle  which,  with  all  the 
exaggeration  of  recent  fad  and  theory,  is  not  yet  sufficiently 
popular,  is — repeat  each  useful  idea  in  continually  varying 
relationships.  Some,  differing  in  the  case  of  every  individual 
with  individual  experience,  will  through  incidental  repetition 
become  permanent  and  result  in  specific  discipline.  The 
mass  of  them,  for  the  time  forgotten,  constitute  the  potential 
energy  of  the  individual  mind,  latent  until  some  favorable 
condition  causes  the  idea  to  recall  them  or  them  to  recall  it, 
to  serve  in  turn  either  a  specific  or  varying  function.  An 
apple  drops  from  a  tree,  and  in  place  of  eat,  wind,  dodge, 
bruise,  or  any  other  association  to  which  apperception  has 
related  the  idea  which  is  its  symbol,  Newton  thinks  of  fall, 
of  gravity,  and  then  of  other  falling  spheres  and  gravity. 
If  hungry,  he  might  have  thought  of  eating  it,  if  he  had  been 
hungry  the  day  before — of  colic.  But,  after  all,  it  was  by  no 
mere  chance  that,  in  the  absence  of  strong  and  immediate 
association  pointing  elsewhere,  his  thought  turned  to  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  49 

stars.  The  presence  of  various  incidental  and  changing 
conditions  psychologically  determines  the  selection  of  the 
relationship  which  any  fully  apperceived  idea  will  suggest. 
But  back  of  this  lies  a  more  permanent  condition  which  can 
be  pedagogically  controlled — the  existence  of  groups  of  ideas, 
great  apperceiving  centers,  variable  in  their  relationships 
through  their  multiplicity,  but  dominant  through  the  fact 
that  they  are  continually  called  to  mind.  If  a  cook,  a  poet, 
or  a  huckster  had  been  under  Newton's  tree,  he  also  might 
have  recalled  food  or  colic,  but,  failing  some  immediate  dis- 
traction, he  would  not  have  thought  of  gravitation.  Just 
as  Newton  naturally  pictured  volumes,  concentric  spheres,  or 
the  greater  velocity  with  which  apples  higher  in  the  tree 
would  hit  the  ground,  the  cook  would  have  recalled  apple- 
sauce, roast  pig,  or  pie;  the  poet,  the  "Planting  of  the  Apple 
Tree,"  "The  Last  Leaf,"  or  "The  Apple  of  Discord,"  and  the 
huckster,  market  price  or  bushel  measure. 

The  application  is  clear.     No  one  relationship  or  fixed 
group  of  relationships  can  be  made  certain  of  recall  by  vary- 
ing apperception,  but  the  recall  of  some  one  of  the 
relationships  belonging  to  the  mass  and  through   ^^f^^ess 
it  of  others,  and  always,  vaguely  at  least,  the   of  relation- 
central  idea  with  which  all    are  associated,  is  ship  makes 
made  exceedingly  probable  through  an  ever  in-   dominant, 
creasing  many-sidedness.     The  educational  use 
of  apperception  lies  first  in  mere  many-sidedness,  in  making 
it  possible  for  any  two  ideas  to  be  re-associated.     However 
incidental  and  unimpressive  their  association  may  be,  the 
relationship  has  been  formed,  and  in  some  flash  of  recollec- 
tion or  of  insight  may  serve  as  the  connecting  link  between 
ideas,  activities,   and  experiences  otherwise  remote.     But 
second,  it  lies  not  merely  in  making  a  concept  fuller,  but  on 
account  of  its  frequent  recurrence  in  varying  relationship,  in 
making  increasingly  probable  the  recall  of  any  one  relation- 
ship and  in  far  higher  degree  the  relationship  which  consti- 
tutes the  concept  itself. 

Just  as  through  their  continual  and  many-sided  recurrence 
4 


50  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

occupation,  money  getting,  food  and  clothing  are  naturally 
made  dominant  in  experience,  so  must  instruction  artificially 
ensure  the  continual  many-sidedness  necessary  to  the  domi- 
nance of  morality,  health,  efficient  industry — as  contrasted 
with  mere  occupations, — citizenship,  social  service,  and  right 
recreation.  Multitudes  of  associations  must  be  cumulatively 
formed  about  each  specific  phase  of  the  educational  aim — 
both  for  the  sake  of  the  many-sidedness  which  makes  it  pos- 
sible of  association  with  every  field  of  experience,  and  for  the 
sake  of  the  repetition  which  makes  it  dominant  in  recall. 

"Whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are  honest, 
whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  pure,  what- 
soever things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good  re- 
port; if  there  be  any  virtue,  if  there  be  any  praise,  think  on 
these  things." 

This  "concentration"  of  many-sidedness  about  funda- 
mentally useful  relationships  is  essential  to  the  realization 
"Concen-  ^^  ^^^  educational  aim,  and  is  employed  by 
tration"  de-  Herbart  as  an  antidote  for  a  purely  incidental 
mandsuse-  variation  in  recall.  Without  it  many-sidedness 
ys  em.    ^^^  ^.^^  ^.^^  ^^  ^  ^^^^  ^^  "Banderloggism" — 

the  state  of  mental  instability  of  which  Kipling's  jungle 
people  accuse  the  monkey  tribe. 

To  such  useful  concentration,  neither  "the  five  formal 
steps"^^  nor  correlation  constitute  certain  means.  Through 
effective  "preparation"  and  "presentation"  new  ideas  may 
be  associated  in  a  many-sided  way,  and  so  further  variation 
and  reorganization  of  relationships.  Even  "generalization" 
and  "application"  may  ensure  merely  a  broader  range  for 
variation.  Concentration  is  brought  about  only  when 
generalization,  made  permanent  in  its  general  form,  results  in 
useful  subordination  or  systematization;  in  the  recognition  of 
the  idea  as  associated  with  the  groups  in  which  it  will  be 
specifically  useful,  and  to  whose  specific  usefulness  it  will  add, 
or  as  specifically  establishing  a  new  relationship  many-sided 
in  a  usefulness  of  its  own.  This  is  equally  true  of  corre- 
lation.    Indeed,  assuming  that  it  avoids  the  absurdities  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  51 

artificial  apperception,  the  lamb-haunted  school  session  made 
classical  by  Bardeen,  or  the  "do-bird"  and  the  "re-bird/* 
which  Findlay  found  connecting  music  and  nature,^^  its  con- 
centration being  that  of  branch  with  branch,  tends  to  become 
academic,  and  so  useful  from  the  standpoint  of  specializa- 
tion rather  than  that  of  a  general  education.  Whether  in 
general  or  in  specialized  education,  however,  useful  concen- 
tration— the  cumulative  usefulness  of  apperception  as  dis- 
tinct from  its  usefulness  as  a  means  to  variation — is  depend- 
ent upon  the  varying  apperception  of  an  idea  made  certain  in 
some  definite  relationship  or  group  of  relationships.  For 
example,  the  mere  name  Lincoln,  and  usually  the  fact  that  he 
was  President  during  the  Civil  War,  can  be  recalled  by 
humorous  anecdotes,  assassination,  school  holidays,  Gettys- 
burg, emancipation,  or  any  other  of  the  many-sided  relation- 
ships in  which  Lincoln's  Birthday  celebrations  have  made  it 
familiar.  The  more  many-sided  the  association,  the  more 
frequently  the  name  Lincoln  is  recalled,  and  the  more  fre- 
quently it  is  recalled,  the  more  likely  its  recall  or  that  of  any 
one  of  the  ideas  to  which  it  is  related,  as  opposed  to  possible 
alternatives.  But  mere  cumulativeness  and  frequency  of 
recurrence  does  not  ensure  concentration,  but  rather  the 
pathways  through  which  useful  relationships  and  groups  of 
relationships  can  get  into  contact  with  other  ideas  and  rela- 
tionships. A  mere  name  can  reorganize  mental  content,  but 
it  cannot  dominate  life  and  character.  In  place  of  a  name, 
there  must  be  definite  and  certain  relationships — ^Lincoln's 
faith  in  divine  Providence,  his  sympathy  as  illus- 
trated  in  the  letter  to  the  mother  who  had  lost  groupings 
her  son,  the  democracy  of  his  Gettysburg  address  essential  to 
— or  all  others  that  relate  the  many-sidedness  of  ^q^^^^*^^" 
Lincoln  to  the  essentials  of  religion,  citizenship, 
or  any  other  phase  of  the  aim.  These  essential  relationships 
must  be  recalled;  the  varying  ones  may  be.  The  essential 
ones  must  be  drilled  upon  until  the  name  eventually  suggests 
them,  just  as  religion  must  eventually  suggest  faith  and  sym- 
pathy, and  citizenship  democracy.     This  done,  the  variation 


52  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  reorganization  to  which  many-sidedness  is  the  indispen- 
sable means  will  ensure  useful  concentration.  The  essential 
ideas  that  dominate  life  are  not  only  made  more  certain  of 
recall,  but  a  means  of  contact  has  been  forged  for  them,  with 
a  vast  number  of  shifting  and  changing  ideas.  Specific  disci- 
pline must  supplement  varying  apperception  if  there  is  to  be 
i  useful  concentration,  just  as  varying  apperception  must  sup- 
j  plement  specific  discipline  if  there  is  to  be  general  discipline. 
Mere  remembrance  and  varying  apperception  incidentally 
provide  the  means  by  which  the  greatest  possible  number  of 
ideas  may  recall  each  other.  It  is  the  function  of  specific 
discipline  to  see  that  the  ideas  most  frequently  recalled  and 
recalling  are  recalled  and  recall  in  essentially  useful  relation- 
ships. 

Through  varying  apperception  the  essential  relationships 
of  life  can  be  carried  into  any  field  of  experience.  Its  varia- 
tion differs,  however,  from  that  of  cumulative 
^erce^fion'  ^^P^^^^^on.  There,  varying  incidents  and  ideas 
may  be  resulting  in  a  common  feeling  are  associated  with 
hostile  to  a  common  idea.  The  more  they  accumulate, 
impresyon.  ^^^^  though  forgotten,  and  the  greater  their 
variation,  the  stronger  the  feeling  aroused  by  the 
common  idea,  especially  if  the  form  of  each  is  adapted  to  the 
development  of  the  feeling  in  high  degree. 

With  varying  apperception  each  new  association  may  result 
in  a  different  impression,  which  may  modify  instead  of  inten- 
sif)dng  the  feeling  that  impression  makes  sure. 

To  sum  up  the  educational  function  of  varying  appercep- 
tion, on  the  side  of  knowledge  it  serves  to  develop  full  or  at 
least  broader  concepts;  to  make  ideas  many-sided  in  their 
relationship.  From  the  standpoint  of  self-activity  this 
many-sidedness  is  useful  in  two  ways.  First,  it  associates  an 
idea  with  as  many  other  ideas  as  possible,  and  so,  both  through 
their  possible  recall  and  association  through  them  with  still 
other  ideas,  furnishes  the  means  for  carrying  it  into  any  field  of 
experience.  Second,  it  makes  more  probable  the  recall  of  the 
idea,  in  continually  varying  relationships — every  successive  re- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  53 

call  making  the  recollection  of  the  idea  and  of  each  of  its  rela- 
tionships more  probable  as  compared  with  that  of  other  pos- 
sible associations  with  which  they  must  continually  compete. 

From  the  standpoint  of  instruction  the  fields  of  experience 
opened  to  each  idea  through  this  first  use  of  varying  apper- 
ception must,  so  far  as  possible,  include  those  in  r^^^  ^^^^ 
which  it  is  known  to  be  most  useful.  A  few  useful 
relationships  in  which  it  will  be  highly  useful —  varying  ap- 
especially  if  they  are  typical  of  distinct  fields  or  p®^^®^  *°^* 
kinds  of  relationship — should  be  made  certain  through  spe- 
cific discipline.  So  far  as  the  time  available  permits,  many 
more  known  to  be  useful  should  be  associated  even  though 
they  will  be  at  once  forgotten,  or  be  variously  held  in  mind 
through  miscellaneous  remembrance.  Always  possible  of 
recall  in  the  original  relationship,  useful  concentration  will 
make  them  increasingly  likely  of  recall.  In  the  case  of  indi- 
vidual learners  a  few  relationships  will  continue  to  be  recalled 
in  their  original  form,  and  so  will  become  specific  even  in 
the  absence  of  specific  discipline  through  instruction. 

But  over  and  above  the  many-sided  relationships  in  which 
the  relatively  most  useful  ideas  are  known  to  be  useful,  are  an 
immeasurable  number  of  relationships  in  which  they  may 
become  useful.  From  this  point  of  view,  miscellaneous  and 
varying  many-sidedness,  apperception  merely  for  the  sake 
of  apperception,  the  accidental  as  well  as  the  necessary  rela- 
tionships of  every-day  experience,  become  educational. 
Relations  may  be  added  that  are  artificial,  remote,  or  absurd. 
The  naturally  imaginative  mind,  probably  based  upon  a 
brain  in  which  associative  fibers  readily  grow,  will  bridge  over 
the  gaps  which  instruction  and  experience  leave  behind. 
But  both  to  the  imaginative  and  to  the  unimaginative,  made 
in  part  at  least  imaginative  as  children  by  fairy  story,  ro- 
mance, tales  of  invention,  and  books  of  travel  and  of  golden 
deeds — constructive  and  imaginative  experience 
and  instruction  must  be  given  at  every  stage  of  Varying  ap- 
educational  development.  They  probably  need  throughlm- 
imaginative  material  more  in  the  culture  epochs   agination. 


54  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

of  sense-perception  and  judgment  than  in  that  of  imagination 
itself,  which  theoretically  and  perhaps  biologically  lies  be- 
tween. They  must  form  the  special  habit  of  S3aithesis, 
not  only  in  so  far  as  it  involves  the  recombining  of  the 
material  immediately  presented  to  the  mind  through 
experience,  but  where  it  must  leap  over  time  or  space, 
through  incidental  or  even  temporary  relationships,  to 
ideas  until  then  unassociated.  The  "bromide,"  if  truly 
educated,  must  become,  in  part  at  least,  a  ''sulphite." 
The  man  in  the  orchard  must  have  some  of  his  ideas  among 
the  stars. 

Old  Sir  Thomas  Browne's  evils  of  the  imagination^^ — the 
dangers  rising  from  an  unrestricted  apperception  which  may 
put  ideas  into  new  relationships  that  are  harmful,  are,  through 
this  educational  use  of  varying  apperception,  directed  and 
regulated  both  negatively  and  positively.  Negative  pre- 
vention is  practicable  only  through  impression,  in  which  some 
evil  idea  or  idea  group,  certain  to  rise  from  experience,  has 
associated  with  it  a  cumulative  mass  of  material  which  will 
result  in  a  growing  feeling  of  repugnance  or  repulsion.  To 
point  out  or  to  caution  against  associations  that  are  merely 
possible  in  their  evil  has  all  the  suggestive  force  of  "Don't 
put  the  cat  in  the  oven."  Positive  prevention  results  di- 
rectly from  limiting  the  varying  apperception  of  instruction 
to  relationships  known  to  be  useful,  and  indirectly  from  the 
FroebeHan  dominance  of  counteracting  groups  of  useful  ideas 
which  concentration  continually  makes  stronger.  When  the 
seal  is  once  broken,  the  genie  of  imagination  does  not  have 
to  be  put  back  into  the  vase. 

Again,  from  the  standpoint  of  instruction,  the  continually 
increasing  frequency  of  recall,  which  constitutes  the  second 
Specific  phase  of  varying  apperception,  must  not  tend 
discipline  to  bring  to  mind  only  a  central  association  that 
usefuf  ^  *^  is  a  mere  abstraction,  or  one  or  more  of  the 
varying  ap-  ideas  to  which  it  has  been  related,  but  the 
perception,  specific  relationship  or  group  of  relationships  in 
which  the  central  association  is  most  useful.     That  is,  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  55 

central  idea  itself  must  be  the  most  useful  relationship  with 
which  the  useful  many-sidedness  can  be  associated,  made 
definite  and  certain  through  specific  discipline.  For  example, 
the  notion  of  rights  may  be  associated  through  incidental 
experience  with  woman's  rights,  punishment  for  misbehavior 
outside  of  the  school  groimds,  self-defense,  trespass,  the 
carrying  of  canes  by  freshmen,  the  right  to  take  a  drink  if  one 
pleases,  Jim  Crow  cars,  a  freedom  from  arrest  when  within 
the  law,  public  school  education,  and  a  multitude  of  other 
things  associated  with  what  one  has  or  has  not  the  right  to 
do.  But  certain  specific  relationships  fimdamentally  useful 
should  be  so  certainly  associated  with  the  notion  of  rights  that 
they  will  be  recalled  when  it  is  recalled.  At  least,  considera- 
tion for  the  rights  of  others,  the  lack  of  moral  necessity  for 
and  the  unwisdom  of  always  demanding  one's  own,  the  domi- 
nance of  moral  over  legal  right,  and  the  fact  that  political 
equality  not  only  demands  for  one's  self  rights  equal  to  those^ 
of  all  citizens,  but  for  all  other  citizens  rights  equal  to  one's  ' 
own — should  be  so  repeatedly  drilled  upon  in  connection  with 
the  idea  of  rights  in  general  that  they  will  always  be  suggested 
by  it  and  one  will  always  suggest  the  others.  Then,  through 
instruction,  there  should  be  associated  with  the  particular 
sort  of  right  with  which  it  belongs,  inquiry  as  to  whether  rais- 
ing a  car  window  will  make  a  neighboring  passenger  uncom- 
fortable, prevention  of  noise  that  would  be  annoying  to  others, 
or  of  whispered  conversation  during  a  sermon  or  public  lec- 
ture, the  giving  up  of  a  seat  in  a  street  car,  refusal  to  strike 
back  at  a  petty  or  unworthy  opponent,  the  forgiving  of  a 
debt  to  one  who  cannot  afford  to  pay  by  one  who  does  not 
need  to  take,  the  payment  of  a  father's  debts  by  a  son  on 
whom  there  is  no  legal  claim,  equal  taxation,  equal  suffrage, 
and  equal  opportunity  to  prove  innocence  of  crime.  The 
number  of  primary  relationships  thus  associated  directly  with 
the  central  idea  itself,  and  of  consequent  relationships  indi- 
rectly associated  through  each,  is  limited  by  the  time  avail- 
able for  memorizing  on  the  one  hand  and  by  their  relative 
usefulness  on  the  other. 


56  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

As  associations  multiply,  their  recollection  is  made  more 
probable  and  the  dominance  of  the  primary  relationship 
The  effect-  S^^^^^Y  furthered,  if  the  secondary  associations 
iveness  of  represent  not  only  useful  relationships,  but  those 
typical  re-  that  are  suflSciently  similar  in  form  or  kind  with 
ps.  j^^j^y  others  to  suggest  an  association  otherwise 
not  readily  apparent.  The  firm  association  with  the  equal 
rights  of  citizenship  of  equal  opportunity  to  prove  innocence 
of  crime  makes  it  easier  to  associate  with  it,  lynch  law,  habeas 
corpus,  trial  by  jury,  and  the  '^unwritten  law."  Later  the 
importance  of  such  fixed  typical  relationships  to  general 
discipline  will  be  fully  demonstrated.  Through  them  vary- 
ing apperception  not  only  makes  it  possible  for  a  habit  or  a 
definite  relationship  to  be  carried  to  any  field  of  knowledge, 
but  more  probable  that  it  will  be  carried  to  the  field  in  which 
it  can  be  usefully  applied.  Any  association  may  become 
directly  or  indirectly  useful,  but  those  known  to  be  useful, 
even  though  but  once  repeated  in  relationship  to  the  central 
idea,  may  recall  the  primary  relationships  most  fundamentally 
useful,  and  with  each  recollection  make  their  dominance  more 
certain.  For  example,  woman  suffrage,  personal  liberty, 
sumptuary  laws,  self-defense,  the  right  of  search,  freedom  of 
worship,  eminent  domain,  prohibition,  and  federal  election 
laws,  associated  but  once  with  equal  rights,  are  not  only 
themselves  given  an  increased  likelihood  of  usefulness,  but 
increase  the  probable  usefulness  of  the  ideal  with  which  they 
have  been  once  connected. 

The  varying  apperception  of  experience  must  be  supple- 
mented by  imaginative  work  and  material  in  the  school  to 
ensure  the  maximum  many-sidedness  that  is  potentially 
useful.  To  make  it  most  certainly  useful  through  con- 
centration, its  most  useful  varying  relationships  must  be 
associated — and  the  most  typical  certainly  associated  with 
the  specific  relationships  in  which  the  central  idea  will  be 
most  useful. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  57 

8.  Specific  Discipline  J  the  One  Certain  Phase  of  Formal 
Self -activity,  and  Essential  to  the  Usefulness  of  all  the 
Others 

The  one  form  of  self-activity  which  can  be  certainly  made 
to  further  the  educational  aim  in  all  of  its  phases  and  details 
is  specific  discipline.     By  specific  discipline  I  do   g  ^^.^^ 
not  mean  merely  the  discipline  peculiar  to  some   discipline 
particular  branch  of  study,  but  the  self-activity  includes 
which  is  based  upon  habit  in  the  broad  sense  of  ftTand  ^ 
a  fixed  and  specific  stimulus  invariably  calling  to   systems  of 
mind  a  particular  fact  or  activity.     It  not  only  t^o^gj^*  and 
involves  the  operation  of  isolated  habits,  but  of 
fixed  systems  of  thought  and  experience,  in  which  habit  has 
been  associated  with  habit  and  general  ideas  with  those  sub- 
ordinate to  them.     It  is  the  mechanical  factor  in  education. 
In  the  case  of  miscellaneous  apperception,  an  idea  may  sug- 
gest any  one  of  a  number  of  related  facts  or  activities.     In 
the  case  of  specific  discipline,  whose  distinguishing  character- 
istics are  definiteness  of  relationship  and  the  certainty  to 
which  definiteness  is  a  necessary  condition,  a  particular  fact 
or  activity  is  sure  to  follow. 

In  ordinary  individual  experience,  or  experience  common  to 
a  particular  environment  or  occupation,  presentations  tend  to 
repeat  themselves  in  definite  relationships.  These,  re-en- 
forced by  varying  apperception  w^hich,  however  many-sided, 
brings  continually  to  mind  one's  ordinary  concept  of  the  thing 
apperceived,  are  made  even  more  certain  than  formal  educa- 
tion can  make  them,  through  a  persistent  repetition  that 
continues  long  after  the  period  of  formal  education  has  ended. 
The  relationships  thus  made  certain  are  usually  the  narrow, 
the  partial,  and  the  commonplace.  They  may  be  highly 
useful,  but  their  usefulness  is  limited  to  particular  locations, 
occupations,  or  social  groups.  Education  should  seek  to  make  \ 
still  more  certain  of  remembrance  and  recall  relationships 
that  are  broadly  and  directly  useful,  and  that  have  as  their 
stimulus  what  will  continue  to  recall  them  in  many  phases  of 


58  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

every-day  life  after  the  repetition  involved  in  formal  education 
is  no  longer  possible.  Dr.  Halleck,  in  illustrating  the  opera- 
tion of  apperception,  represents  a  man  up  a  tree  as  judging  the 
occupation  of  passers-by  from  what  their  comment  or  actions 
showed  them  to  understand  the  tree  to  be.^^  It  was  good- 
morning,  Mr.  Tanner,  to  the  man  interested  in  the  bark;  Mr. 
Carpenter  or  Mr.  Lumberman,  to  one  who  estimated  its 
contents  in  board  feet;  Mr.  Artist,  to  another  who  admired 
the  form  and  color  of  its  foliage,  and  so  on,  with  poet,  gunner, 
priest,  or  school  boy.  The  only  well-educated  man,  however, 
was  the  man  up  the  tree.  His  concepts  included  that  of  all 
the  others.  Apperception  in  as  broad  a  sense  as  the  highest 
usefulness  of  each  essential  relationship  demands,  must  be 
made  specific  and  certain  by  education,  as  in  a  narrower  way 
it  is  incidentally  made  specific  and  certain  by  experience. 
Specific  discipline  and  varied  apperception  must  supplement 
each  other. 

Children  can  have  but  partial  and  individual  concepts  of  the 
great  mass  of  possibly  useful  things,  but  the  partial  concept 
.  of  these  things  that  are  certainly  most  useful  must 

tion  must  be  selected  with  a  view  to  its  possible  useful  rela- 
be  specific     tionships  and  be  made  fixed  and  certain  through 

^!J!^t„^^  formal  instruction.  Tree,  through  education, 
varying.  '  ^  ' 

eventually  might  suggest  aesthetic  and  religious 
feeling,  the  usefulness  of  its  different  parts,  drainage,  and 
conservation.  Through  the  incidental  apperception  that 
results  from  experience,  it  would  sometimes  be  something  to 
swing  on,  sometimes  something  to  climb,  and  usually  the 
thing  that  occupation  or  environment  happens  to  make  it. 
Left  to  ordinary  apperception,  sugar  may  suggest  the  maple 
tree,  fudge,  vacuum  pan,  sugar  tongs,  the  tariff,  sugar  beet  or 
Cuba,  and,  on  reflection,  a  various  mingling  of  such  associa- 
tions. With  apperception  made  specific  and  certain  through 
instruction,  it  should  when  used  as  a  general  term  suggest 
a  great  staple  with  its  raw  materials,  the  countries  pro- 
ducing them,  manner  of  production,  trade,  manufacture, 
and  the   uses  to  which  the  finished  products  are  put,  ex- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  59 

pecially  in  America.  Even  the  partial  concept  of  any  highly 
useful  thing  should,  so  far  as  possible,  begin  Even  partial 
with  the  specific  memorizing  of  one  or  two  of  its  concepts 
most  useful  relationships.  Through  a  purely  ^egfn^with 
incidental  experience,  a  church  becomes  a  place  essential  re- 
where  sermons  are  preached,  where  Sunday-school  lationships. 
is  held,  where  there  are  entertainments  at  Christmas.  Edu- 
cation should  make  it  certainly  suggest  the  reverence  becom- 
ing God's  house,  which  in  childhood  begins,  if  not  with 
Richter's  mighty  organ  and  the  light  of  saint  illumined 
windows,  at  least  with  the  taking  off  of  hats  and  subdued 
voices  rather  than  blue  tickets  or  chewing  gum  on  the  backs 
of  pews. 

Usually  the  partial  concept  stops  far  short  of  specific  apper- 
ception. Even  the  one  or  two  associations  upon  which  re- 
membrance is  based  are  indefinite  and  uncertain.  Witness 
the  agitation  of  the  public  press  when  a  year  or  so  ago  many 
of  the  winners  of  competitive  examinations  for  appointment 
to  West  Point  were  not  sure  whether  Alexandria  was  in  Asia 
or  Africa,  or  Saratoga  in  the  Civil  War  or  the  Revolution. 
In  fact,  one  of  the  most  serious  criticisms  made  of  the  new 
education  is  the  lack  of  definiteness,  which  President  Sharp- 
less  recently  illustrated  by  the  Sunday-school  boy  who  when 
asked,  "What  was  the  first  thing  which  St.  Peter  did  after  he 
denied  his  Lord?"  replied  with,  "He  went  out  in  the  garden 
and  crowed  three  times." 

In  place  of  the  unvarying  repetition  of  definitely  associ- 
ated facts  which  characterized  the  old  education,  there  has 
been  too  frequently  substituted  an  individual     specific 
apperception  which,  whether  optional  or  acci-    discipline 
dental,  leaves  the  determination  of  what  is  to  be    J®^*  *°® 
remembered  and  the  relationships  in  which  it  is    individual 
remembered,  to  the  selective  activity  of  each    determina- 
individuaPs    mental    content.     When    the    old    ^^^^' 
education  stopped  short  of  specific  discipline  it  was  because 
it  sought  to  fix  certainly  all  ideas  in  definite  relationships  and 
consequently  give  adequate  repetition  to  but  few  relations  or 


6o  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

to  those  that  were  non-essentiaL  The  new  education  stops 
short  of  it  when  it  seeks  to  certainly  fix  indefinite  relationships 
for  too  few  ideas  or  none  at  all.  Apperception  is  not  disci- 
plinary where  it  merely  develops  temporary  and  many-sided 
self-activity  based  on  varying  relationships.  Discipline 
involves  habit,  and  depends  for  its  persistence  upon  the  ade- 
quate and  unvarying  repetitions  of  fact  and  activities  in  defi- 
nite relationships. 

Whatever  the  object  of  a  particular  sort  of  school  work  or 
branch  of  study,  whether  it  is  intended  to  further  directly 
industrial  efficiency,  good  citizenship,  or  some  other  phase 
of  the  aim,  or  to  further  indirectly  all  phases  of  useful  activity 
through  academic  training  and  general  discipline,  specific 
discipline  should  result  in  two  distinct  ways  and  involve  the 
development  of  quite  distinct  systems  of  ideas. 

First,  the  new  ideas  and  relationships  resulting  from  study 
will  be  apperceived  differently  by  each  individual  according 
to  his  dominant  mental  content,  his  past  experience,  and  the 
ideas  that  happen  to  be  uppermost  in  his  mind.  Whether 
or  not  the  habits  and  systems  of  the  school  carry  over  into 
life,  the  habitual  attitudes  of  mind  of  individual  fife  carry 
over  into  the  school.  Since  the  repetitions  of  thought  and 
experience  make  life  habits  sure,  those  that  are  useful  must 
be  made  to  play  their  part  in  formal  education,  through 
teaching  the  material  of  varying  apperception  in  relation  to 
them. 

Second,  both  the  new  ideas  and  relationships  and  the 
old  should  be  apperceived  by  all  individuals  through  common 
habits  and  systems  of  thought  which  instruction  has  created 
and  compelled.  It  is  the  function  of  specific  discipline  to 
make  these  habits  and  systems  of  thought  acquired  through 
formal  instruction  as  certain  as  those  acquired  through  every- 
day life.  It  must  make  them  certain  of  operation  in  the 
academic  field  or  they  are  not  disciplinary  at  all.  It  may  or 
may  not  meet  the  conditions  necessary  to  their  being  carried 
over  into  other  fields  of  knowledge  and  experience.  Their 
dominance  in  any  field,  however,  is  primarily  dependent  upon 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  6 1 

their  system  and  their  certainty.  Habit  must  be  systematic- 
ally added  to  habit  until  constellations  of  ideas  swing  in 
their  orbits  as  unvaryingly  as  the  planets  rotate  about  the 
sun. 

In  the  case  of  the  traditional  * 'disciplinary/'  '^abstract,"  or 
"formal"  branches,  such  as  the  languages  and  mathematics, 
system  and  certainty  are  not  only  essential  to 
their  mastery  as  wholes,  but  are  favored  by  the   5^^160?^^^* 
very  sparseness  of  their  subject  matter,  and  the  compels 
necessity  for  continually  and  unvaryingly  repeat-  temporary 
•£         14.'       u-  J  -T^i,         habit  and 

mg  specmc  relationships  and  sequences,     iney  system. 

have  been  contrasted  with  "real"  or  concrete 
branches   in  whose   many-sided   content   system   is   more 
variable    and    the    repetition    of    particular    relationships 
and    sequences    is    not    compelled    by   their   unavoidable 
reiteration. 

It  by  no  means  follows  that  the  study  of  the  formal  subject  \ 
is  necessary  to  discipline.     Certainty  and  system  are  made  ' 
more  probable  because  specific  discipline  is  neces-   continuity 
sary  to  the  formal  subject.     Indeed,  the  present   essential  to 
demand  by  advocates  of  formal  discipline  for  permanent 
concentration  upon  one  or  two  formal  subjects     ^^"P^^®* 
for  a  term  of  years  constitutes  a  confession  that  continuity 
in  the  use  of  subject  matter  is  necessary  to  certainty  of  its 
relationships,  even  should  its  abstractness  and  system  compel 
discipline  so  long  as  it  is  in  use.     A  modified  course  of  study\ 
may  partially   ensure   this   continuity  within   the   school.! 
Outside  of  it,  certainty  of  academic  system  is  possible  only 
through  the  continuity  of  specialization.     Certainty  of  par- 
ticular habits  may  be  ensured  through  the  continuity  result- 
ing from  the  many-sided  relating  of  the  subject  matter  of  the 
school  to  every-day  experience.    Without  permanent  certainty  I 
of  relationship  there  is  no  permanent  habit.     Without  per-  | 
manent  habit  there  can  be  no  lasting,  formal,  or  general  dis- 
discipline.    The  side-shows  must  not  distract  attention  from 
the  main  tent.      But  nothing  will  be  gained  by  substituting 
for  the  merry-go-round  of  the  elective  system  the  hobby- 


62  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

horse  of  an  academic  specialization,  which  will  be  left  behind 
in  school. 

To  demonstrate,  however,  that  the  system  and  many  of 
the  habits  resulting  from  the  study  of  formal  subjects  are 
not  permanent  and  continuing  for  students  who  do  not  be- 
come specialists,  does  not  deprive  mathematics,  or  the  lan- 
guages, of  the  aid  to  specific  discipline  given  by  the  necessity 
of  repeating  its  details  in  unvarying  relationships.  But  the 
importance  of  what  is  after  all  only  a  favorable  condition 
can  be  easily  exaggerated.  Arithmetic,  for  example,  is 
not  commonly  so  taught  in  the  schools  as  to  rise  to  the 
dignity  of  mathematical  system.  The  method  peculiar 
to  the  formal  subject  compels  a  certain  amount  of  disci- 
phne,  but  pedagogical  method  is  necessary  to  ensure  it  in 
its  fulness. 

Every  step  toward  the  development  of  effective  pedagog- 
ical method  in  the  teaching  of  the  various  branches  in  general 
is  a  step  toward  the  equalization  of  conditions 
ical  mefhod  i^^^^^^^  i^  subject  matter  favorable  or  unfavor- 
can  ensure  able  to  specific  discipline.  The  repetitions  of 
system  history  are  proverbial,  but  in  it  and  other  many- 

subject,  sided  branches,  such  use  of  specific  relationships 
and  conditions  that  continually  recur,  as  to  make 
pupils  remember  by  them  and  think  with  them,  is  not  com- 
pelled by  a  method  peculiar  to  the  branch  itself.  It  is  de- 
pendent on  a  pedagogical  method  that  the  teacher  too  often 
has  not  mastered  and  for  which  he  substitutes  outlines,  topics, 
and  associations  too  numerous  to  be  memorized  with  cer- 
tainty, which  confuse  the  mind  through  their  number  and 
block  the  way  to  general  discipline.  In  the  present  state  of 
pedagogical  training — not  much  different  today  in  college 
and  university  than  when  President  Butler  voiced  his  dis- 
trust of  the  "experience  that  stands  alone  "^^ — from  the 
standpoint  of  certainty  as  distinct  from  continuity  and 
other  conditions  yet  to  be  discussed,  the  advantage  still 
lies,  though  quite  unnecessarily,  with  the  "formal  dis- 
ciplines." 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  63 

The  unforgivable  sin  pedagogical  is  that  on  the  strength 
of  the  minor  and  temporary  aid  to  specific  discipline  which 
the  continual  repetition  of  ideas  in  unvarying  j^j^gj.^ 
relationships  gives  to  the  formal  subjects,  they  preparation 
have  become  the  required  subjects  of  the  school  *or  life 
curriculum  in  place  of  the  equally  specific  systems  greater  sys- 
of  thought  directly  necessary  to  citizenship,  right  tem  than  the 
living,  health,  industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  "formal'* 
and  the  proper  enjoyment  of  leisure.  There  is 
not  a  phase  of  the  educational  aim  which  in  addition  to  all 
that  general  discipline,  information,  and  culture  can  contrib- 
ute does  not  require  a  more  cumulative  and  complex  system 
of  specific  relationships  and  fixed  habits  than  mathematics  or 
a  language.  The  direct  teaching  of  good  health  and  good 
citizenship  demands  a  more  adequate  specific  discipline  than 
the  mastery  of  civics  or  physiology.  The  reason  why  history 
and  civil  government  have  been  taught  without  making  good 
citizens,  and  physiology  without  resulting  in  healthful  men 
and  women,  is  mainly  because  we  have  been  teaching  history,  j 
civil  government,  and  physiology  instead  of  good  health  and ' 
citizenship.  They  too  are  sciences.  To  impression  and 
many-sidedness  must  be  added  the  certain  interrelation  and 
subordination  of  group  after  group  of  ideas  and  activities. 
The  duty  of  suffrage,  for  example,  must  be  permanently 
associated  with  the  noting  of  registration  day  and  the  dates  of 
primaries  and  elections,  the  study  of  men  and  of  issues,  the 
habit  of  overcoming  all  obstacles  that  stand  in  the  way  of 
registration  and  of  voting.  It,  in  turn,  with  Australian  ballot 
system,  the  inexorable  punishment  of  frauds  at  the  polls, 
the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  naturalization,  woman  suffrage 
— each  one  of  which  like  it,  and  many  more  has  a  mass  of 
subordinate  associations  in  its  train — must  be  certainly  re- 
lated to  equal  suffrage.  Equal  suffrage  must  call  to  mind 
equal  taxation,  equality  before  the  law,  equal  responsibility 
for  its  enforcement,  with  their  several  series  of  subordinate 
groupings  and  subgroupings,  and  together  with  them  and 
other  ideas  fundamental  to  democracy  be  classified  as  equal 


64  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

rights.  Through  equal  rights  the  whole  complicated  body 
of  thoughts  and  activities  of  which  all  these  are  but  a  part 
must  be  firmly  connected  with  the  divisions  and  subdivisions 
similarly  subordinate  to  the  obedience  to  law,  love  of  Hberty, 
patriotic  self-sacrifice,  loyalty  to  the  union,  and  other  funda- 
mental phases  of  true  American  citizenship.  If  the  religion 
and  morahty,  health,  political  and  social  service,  industrial 
efficiency,  and  avocation  developed  through  instruction  are  to 
cope  with  physical,  social,  industrial,  and  political  evil  made 
certain  by  experience  and  systematic  through  life  itself,  their 
specific  discipline  must  be  more  certain  and  systematic  than 
that  of  the  "formal .  disciplines"  themselves. 

Whatever  the  human  will  may  be  theologically  and  psycho- 
logically, educationally  the  first  step  in  its  development  is  the 
Confined  building  up  of  specific  relationships.  It  is  im- 
to  special-  pression  with  its  specific  centering  of  the  feelings 
*^fi*^^d-*  ^^^"  that  constitutes  conscience  and  "good  will"  so 
pline  makes  ^^^  ^s  they  can  be  regarded  as  pedagogical  crea- 
life  too  tions.     It  and  the  force  of  specific  discipline,  the 

one-sided,  habitual  range  of  ideas  within  individual  systems 
of  thought,  form  both  the  negative  power  of  conscience  or 
inhibition,  and  the  positive  incentives  to  routine  existence,  imi- 
tation, and  general  discipKne.  It  is  they  that  not  only  make 
the  mathematician  a  mathematician,  the  soldier  a  soldier,  and 
the  good  man  a  good  man,  but  the  "bromide"  a  "bromide," 
the  poet  a  poet,  and  the  inventor  an  inventor.  The  "bro- 
mide" or  "philistine,"  satisfied  with  his  petty  routine,  seeing 
things  as  he  has  always  seen  them,  doing  what  he  has  ever 
done,  and  saying  w^hat  others  have  said,  whether  he  is  mathe- 
matician, soldier,  good  man,  or  all  three,  is  one  in  whom  ap- 
perception as  a  solely  centripetal  force  has  become  certain  and 
continuing.  All  conflicting  associations,  all  relationships 
which  lead  away  from  the  accustomed  paths  are  inhibited  by 
the  fixed  feelings  or  idea  sequences  that  reign  supreme.  Once 
put  the  will  to  sleep  or  break  down  its  inhibitory  force,  and  the 
many-sidedness  of  relationship  which  has  been  centered  upon 
fixed  circles  of  thought  becomes  centrifugal  in  a  reaction 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  65 

which  hurries  the  mind  to  associations  that,  whether  useful, 
evil,  fantastic,  or  absurd,  have  the  one  quality  in  common  of 
being  different  from  the  old.  One  glass  of  champagne  and 
the  bashful  or  cautious  man  of  few  words  may  give  a  brilHant 
and  witty  after-dinner  speech  or  become  a  loquacious  fool. 
The  bishop  is  quite  likely  to  swear  in  the  delirium  of  fever; 
the  imimaginative  man  to  dream  of  elephants  that  cKmb 
trees.  Now  the  individual  who  has  been  so  specifically 
disciplined  in  some  one  field  that  its  feelings  and  habits 
dominate  all  others,  except  when  the  will  is  temporarily 
conquered,  is  more  of  a  monomaniac  than  if  he  had  been 
obsessed  by  one  idea.  The  monomaniac  of  one  idea  is  only 
a  monomaniac  part  of  the  time;  the  monomaniac  who  is 
dominated  by  a  system  of  feelings  and  ideas  is  never  likely 
to  be  sane  at  all.  He  may  play  a  necessary  part  in  civiliza- 
tion. He  may  be  a  mighty  conqueror,  the  remorseless  cap- 
tain of  industry,  or  a  glorious  fanatic  who  blesses  a  people 
or  destroys  a  creed.  But  such  a  monomaniac  is  the  product 
of  heredity  and  environment  or  the  gift  of  God.  Were  it 
possible  to  produce  him  through  education,  we  would  not 
dare  for  fear  that  assuming  the  function  of  nature  and  of 
deity,  we  would  create  a  Frankenstein. 

So  far  as  instruction  can  supplement  nature  and  experience 
by  completing  or  correcting  the  systems  which  they  so  spe- 
cifically and  certainly  develop,  it  will  be  first  by  • 
building  up  not  one  but  all  of  the  several  great  ^^iMtionof 
systems    of    specifically    related    feelings    and  all  systems 
thoughts  which  correspond  to  the  several  phases  *o  direct 
of  the  educational  ideal,  including  a  subordinate   essentfd.^^ 
academic  specialization;  and  second,  by  ensuring 
for  each  a  many-sidedness  through  apperception  and  general 
discipline,  that  is  as  essential  to  their  highest  usefulness  as  is 
specific  discipline  to  the  useful  concentration  of  varpng  ap- 
perception. 

Specific   discipHne,   through   and   for  morality,   religion, 
health,  work,  social  service,  citizenship,  and  avocation,  is 
primary.     It  can  be  brought  about  only  through  continual 
5 


66  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

repetition  and  reiteration  year  by  year  of  ideas  and  activities 
definitely  associated  in  the  relationships  which  make  them 
directly  and  certainly  useful  and  in  which  they  will  continue 
to  be  useful  in  every-day  life,  as  well  as  in  school.  For  this 
continuity  is  as  essential  as  certainty.  Not  only  must  habits 
be  continuing,  but  they  must  be  continuing  in  the  relation- 
ships which  ensure  their  direct  usefulness. 

Obviously,  the  direct  and  general  usefulness  of  an  academic 
subject  or  "formal  discipline"  is  Hmited  to  its  contribution 
Even  as  a  ^^  various  relationships,  which  will  be  reorganized 
specific  dis-  in  specific  association  wath  some  phase  of  the 
cipline,  the  educational  aim.  Its  mastery  as  a  systematic 
subject  is  whole  is  only  justifiable  for  all  individuals  in 
on  the^  common,  if  it  thereby  develops  some  relation- 

defensive,  gj^p  Qj.  ggj.jgs  of  activities,  highly  useful  to  all,  that 
cannot  be  developed  as  thoroughly  or  at  all  by  other  subjects 
whose  closer  relationships  to  life  make  useful  application 
either  certain  or  more  probable.  That  is,  even  from  the 
standpoint  of  specific  discipline,  the  highly  organized  subject 
matter  of  the  formal  subject,  with  its  certainty  of  specific 
relationships  and  system,  is  a  disadvantage  rather  than  an 
advantage  if  its  mastery  as  a  whole  is  not  directly  useful. 
If  mastery  of  the  whole  is  unavoidable  as  a  necessary  condi- 
tion to  that  of  some  part  which  gives  a  relationship  otherwise 
unattainable,  or  so  much  more  thoroughly  developed  that  the 
time  spent  in  the  mastery  of  the  whole  is  justified,  the  more 
exact  and  thorough  the  branch  as  a  whole,  the  greater  the 
waste  of  time  in  its  mastery.  Hence,  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  general  education  required  of  all,  as  distinct  from  a 
speciahzation  possible  to  each,  every  "formal"  subject  is  on 
the  defensive — first,  to  prove  that  the  specific  relationship  it 
develops  cannot  be  developed  at  all  or  as  thoroughly  by 
subject-matter  organized  for  direct  usefulness;  and,  second, 
to  prove  that  to  ensure  such  mastery  or  its  directly  useful 
i  relationships,  it  must  be  studied  as  a  whole. 

From  the  standpoint  of  specialization,  however,  the  mastery 
of  the  branch  as  a  whole  may  become  necessary — not  as  a 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  67 

required  subject  for  all  individuals  in  common,  but  in  order 
that  particular  individuals  may  directly  and  specifically  serve 
various  phases  of  the  aim  in  some  way  to  which  the  branch  as 
a  whole  is  essential.  All  men  to  be  healthy  need  not  be  math- 
ematicians and  physiologists,  but  the  physician  must  know 
his  anatomy,  and  the  specialist  in  advanced  medical  research 
his  mathematics  and  electro-chemistry.  Sharp  discrimina- 
tion, then,  must  be  made  between  the  specific  discipline  which 
is  specifically  useful  to  all  individuals,  and  that  which  is  spe- 
cifically useful  to  the  specialist.  Science  and  civilization 
demand  only  of  the  few,  the  teachers  and  investigators,  that, 
for  the  sake  of  knowledge  alone,  they  shall  devote  their  life- 
effort — their  continual  study  to  some  particular  branch  of 
knowledge  which  to  others  may  be  avocation,  industry,  or 
citizenship,  but  to  them  means  the  advancement,  the  con- 
servation, and  the  transmission  of  learning. 

The  specific  discipline  that  directly  and  certainly  makes  for 
the  various  phases  of  the  educational  aim,  must  not  only 
utilize  and  reorganize  the  system  that  may  have  r^^^  ^ 
been  in  part  academically  acquired,  but  it  must  cific  dis- 
utilize  and  reorganize  the  specific  disciplines  of  cipline  of 
life  itself.    Conspicuous  among  these  is  imitation  aration*^^^" 
— especially   imitation   of   a   personal   example,   must  in- 
Ernest  gained  from  the  Great  Stone  Face  a  lesson   ^^uf  ^^^\f 
which  no  mere  mass  of  rock  could  give.     The 
contemplation  of  Buddha,  and  ''the  putting  on"  of  Christ 
as    advocated    by    St.    Paul    and    attempted    by   Thomas 
a  Kempis,  add  through  the  presence   of    personality,  the 
repetition  of  feeling  and  of  action  to  that  of  idea,  and  so 
bring  about  interaction  of  habit  and  ideal.     The  imitation  of 
ordinary  life,  however,  needs  direction  through  instruction, 
and  the  addition  of  other  forms  of  specific  discipline  to  ensure 
its  usefulness.  No  human  example  is  perfect,  no  divine  ex- 
ample will  remain  unimpaired  by  the  human  imperfections 
which  humanity  has  ever  seen  reflected  in  the  divine.     The 
personal  example  of  a  great  teacher  impresses  itself  upon  the 
few;  each  of  the  Spheres  of  Helmholz  responds  to  but  a  single 


68  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

note.  It  is,  after  all,  the  sufficiently  persistent  pointing  out  of 
a  great  example  by  teachers  who  are  not  great  that,  added  to 
all  other  forms  of  specific  discipline,  tends  most  strongly  to 
ensure  the  ideals  and  the  habits  necessary  to  each  phase  of  the 
educational  aim.  Example  is  better  than  precept,  but  it  is 
still  better  when  precept  and  fixed  sequence  of  feelings  and 
ideas  are  added  to  it. 

The  specific  discipline,  then,  of  instruction  directly  prep- 
aratory to  each  phase  of  the  aim,  must  be  strong  enough  not 
only  to  continue  in  life,  but  to  reorganize  and 
to  r^or^*an^  dominate  the  specific  disciplines  of  experience, 
ize  experi-  To  this  continuance  and  domination  the  closest 
ence  must  possible  interconnection  between  the  school  and 
to  U^ef  ^  every-day  life  is  an  indispensable  condition.  The 
specific  discipline  of  the  formal  subjects  most  re- 
mote from  life  may  be  exceptionally  certain  on  accoimt  of 
their  remoteness.  They  are  continuing  and  dominating, 
however,  only  for  pedant  or  specialist;  and  then  usually  in 
the  negative  sense  of  inhibiting  other  relationships.  Witness 
Fenimore  Cooper's  naturalist  among  the  pioneers  in  *The 
Prairie,"  or  the  professor  of  the  modern  newspaper  cartoonist, 
provokingly  untrustworthy  in  life's  simplest  experiences. 
Even  systems  of  instruction  not  merely  formal,  but  directly 
and  specifically  disciplinary  in  health  or  citizenship,  always 
tend  to  be  limited  to  the  relationships  in  which  their  useful- 
ness has  become  habitual.  Specific  discipline  is  negative  and 
inhibitory  because  it  is  specific.  It  tends  to  prevent  wrong 
activity  alternative  to  useful  habits  already  formed,  but  not 
to  carry  useful  habits  over  into  new  fields.  The  carrying 
over  of  academic  systems  as  systems  is  reserved  for  the  spe- 
cialist, except  in  so  far  as  an  academic  system  has  in  whole  or 
in  part  been  associated  with  the  system  specifically  furthering 
some  phase  of  the  aim.  If  the  habit  of  systematically  noting 
details  developed  in  chemistry,  or  a  habit  of  analysis  formed 
in  grammar,  is  to  be  carried  over  into  industry,  it  must  be 
specifically  associated  with  some  definite  phase  of  industry. 

The  systems  essential  to  morality,  citizenship,  and  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  69 

other  specific  disciplines  directly  necessary  to  complete 
living,  must  be  carried  over  as  wholes  into  every-day  experi- 
ence not  only  to  inhibit  conflicting  habits,  but  to  reorganize 
and  dominate  every  phase  and  episode  of  life  in  which  they 
can  be  applied.  The  sole  means  to  this  end  are  varying! 
apperception  and  general  discipline.  I 

The  varying  apperception  of  each  specifically  useful 
group  in  all  useful  relationships  that  can  be  anticipated,  is 
impossible  through  instruction.  Still  more  out  Domination 
of  the  question  is  the  anticipatory  association  of  possible  only 
each  in  all  useful  relationships  that  are  possible,  through 
for  few  useful  relationships  are  determinable  in  perception 
advance  of  the  situation  in  which  they  are  needed,  and  general 
At  best,  as  has  been  said  vinder  varying  apper-  ^^^^^  ^®* 
ception,  instruction  must  present  as  many  specifically  useful 
associations  as  time  permits,  and  make  certain  the  few  that 
are  most  typical.  Joseph  Payne  early  pointed  out  the  two 
fallacies  of  insisting  that  because  there  is  so  much  to  know 
in  the  world  children  should  learn  it  all  at  school,  and  that 
because  there  is  so  much  to  be  done  in  the  world  children 
should  anticipate  it  all  through  instruction.^^  His  solution 
was  formal  discipline;  Herbart's  was  many-sidedness. 
Strange  that  we  have  been  so  long  in  perceiving  that  each 
solution  is  partial  and  inadequate  without  the  other.  Many- 
sidedness  furnishes  the  system  of  transportation  and  inter- 
communication by  which  an  idea  or  relationship  can  be 
associated  with  any  other  that  is  capable  of  recall.  It  makes 
equally  possible  the  most  desperate  freaks  of  insanity  and 
the  noblest  flights  of  imagination.  Varying  apperception  of 
a  useful  relationship  in  manifold  useful  connections  makes 
its  usefulness  more  probable,  both  by  multiplying  the  paths 
of  certainly  useful  recall  and  by  increasing  the  likelihood  of 
recall.  Its  specific  association  in  a  few  typically  useful  rela- 
tionships, gives  it  the  only  usefulness  that  is  certain,  and  makes 
easier  the  task  of  general  discipline.  It  remains  for  general 
discipline  to  give  the  highest  probability  of  application  to 
any  useful  sequence  or  habit,  and  consequently  to  the  whole 


70  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

system  of  ideas  and  activities  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  in 
case  that,  through  many-sidedness,  its  accustomed  stimulus 
is  associated  with  some  unaccustomed  field  of  experience. 

If  specific  discipline  is  to  result  in  general  discipline,  if  a 
habit  or  a  sequence  is  to  be  carried  over  into  some  other 
General  environment  than  that  in  which  it  is  formed,  it 
discipline  must  not  only  be  certain  and  continuing,  but  its 
h^b^f  ^\h  s^i^^^^s  must  be  general  enough  to  be  found  in  ^i 
as  general  the  Other  environment.  The  fact  that  it  is  ' 
a  stimulus  found  there  does  not,  of  course,  make  it  useful 
as  IS  use  u  .  -j-j^^j.^^  j^^j.  ^j^^g  [-^^  possible  usefulness  there  ensure 
its  recognition  and  the  consequent  and  certain  operation  of 
the  habit.  The  conditions  necessary  to  its  recognition  will 
be  discussed  imder  general  discipline.  Meanwhile  it  is  clear 
that  specific  discipline  must  meet  the  fundamental  obstacles 
to  the  operation  or  the  usefulness  of  general  discipline — the 
association  in  the  sequence  or  habit  of  a  stimulus  too  par- 
ticular or  too  general  to  be  useful. 

The  too  narrow  stimulus  is  well  illustrated  by  the  mythical 
but  classical  case  of  the  woman  who  having  broken  her  right 
leg  was  sympathetic  with  all  similarly  afflicted,  but  wholly  in- 
capable of  sympathizing  with  anyone  who  had  broken  the  left. 

A  boy  may  learn  to  be  certainly  obedient  to  his  father  and 
not  his  mother,  to  a  particular  inflection  or  stress  of  voice,  to 
a  particular  teacher,  to  any  teacher  on  the  second  floor,  or  to 
no  teacher  off  the  school  grounds.  He  is  not  as  usefully 
disciplined  as  he  should  be  until  the  stimulus  to  obedience 
is  a  command  that  does  not  violate  conscience,  given  by  any 
one  who  has  the  right  to  give  it.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
habitual  stimulus  to  an  idea  or  other  activity  should  not  be  as 
general  as  possible,  but  only  as  general  as  may  be  useful. 
The  whole  German  Empire  laughed  because  a  little  town 
obeyed  the  absurd  commands  of  an  adventurer  who  assumed 
imperial  authority  with  a  cast-off  uniform.  Useful  as  the 
habit  of  observation  is,  its  stimulus  should  not  be  any  object 
which  happens  to  fall  within  the  range  of  the  senses.  The 
amiable  lecturer  before  teachers'  assemblies,  who  proves  his 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  71 

auditors  poor  observers  by  asking  them  the  color  of  the  neck- 
tie he  wore  the  day  before,  the  number  of  houses  in  the 
neighborhood  which  have  front  porches,  or  on  which  pair  of 
legs  a  cow  first  rises  from  the  ground  would  be  a  monomaniac 
more  hopeless  because  scientific  if  he  carried  that  sort  of 
observation  very  far  beyond  the  institute  platform.  Imagine 
him  noticing  the  color  of  each  auditor's  eyes,  the  style  and 
number  of  buttons  within  his  range  of  vision  and  the  details 
in  the  pictures,  or  other  decorations  on  the  wall.  One  of  the 
most  important  problems  connected  with  the  development  of 
self-activity  is  the  determination  of  the  extent  to  which  it  is 
useful  for  the  stimulus  to  a  useful  habit  to  be  general,  if  the 
habit  is  to  be  most  useful.  Generalization  of  the  stimulus  to 
a  habit,  thus  limited,  is  the  first  necessary  condition  to  general 
discipline  or  application,  and  will  be  more  fully  discussed  in 
relation  to  it.  It  is  the  stimulus  to  the  habit,  not  the  habit, 
that  is  generalized.  Habit  is  always  specific.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  general  habit,  except  as  the  term  is  loosely 
applied  to  a  habit  with  a  general  stimulus.  The  important 
fact  to  note  at  this  point  is  the  necessity  from  the  standpoint 
of  education  in  contrast  with  incidental  experi-  Extent  of 
ence,  of  limiting  generalization,  Herbartian  or  generaliza- 
otherwise,  to  the  useful  and  to  what  furthers  *^<!°  ^®*®^" 
some  phase  of  the  educational  aim.  Just  as  j-a^nge  of^ 
modem  education  has  too  often  concerned  itself  useful 
with  the  development  of  mere  many-sidedness,  ^PP^^^ation. 
without  regard  to  specifically  useful  apperception,  it  has 
insisted  upon  generalization  without  regard  to  the  degree  of 
generalization  that  is  useful  for  the  stimulus  to  a  habit  which 
may  be  either  too  narrowly  or  too  generally  applied. 

This  is  especially  unfortunate  at  a  time  when  Herbartian- 
ism,  re-enforcing  the  movement  toward  many-sided  knowledge 
as  opposed  to  "general  discipline,"  is  emphasizing  the  import- 
ance of  the  specific  discipline  peculiar  to  each  branch  of 
knowledge.  If  general  discipline  in  the  old  sense  is  not  to  be 
depended  upon,  it  is  folly  to  substitute  for  it  specific  stimuli 
which  may  be  too  narrow  or  too  general  in  their  occurrence, 


72  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and,  as  regards  the  application  of  the  consequent  habit,  to 
assume  with  Mr.  Spencer  the  adequacy  of  incidental  disci- 
pline not  made  certain  and  useful  through  method.^^  Payne's 
warning  against  the  two  fallacies,  more  or  less  popularized 
by  the  new  education,  is  not  untimely. 

The  final  factor  that  must  be  considered  in  connection  with 
specific  discipline  as  a  condition  to  general  discipline,  as  it 
Continuity  ^^^  already  been  considered  in  connection  with 
as  essential  specific  discipline  as  an  end  in  itself,  is  its  likeli- 
to  general  hood  or  certainty  of  persistence  after  the  period 
dLcipUne^^""  ^^  ^^™^^  instruction  has  ended.  While  a  habit 
once  formed  tends  to  persist,  it  will  not  continue 
to  operate  with  certainty  unless  it  continues  to  be  called  into 
operation.  It  is,  therefore,  not  enough  that  effective  instruc- 
tion should  ensure  the  persistence  of  useful  habits  throughout 
the  school  course,  but  it  becomes  necessary  either  that  the 
branch  of  knowledge  responsible  for  the  otherwise  temporary 
discipline  should  continue  to  be  studied  or  that  the  stimuli 
to  the  habits  should  continually  recur  in  every-day  life  and  be 
continually  identified  by  the  individual,  who  has  been  the 
subject  of  the  discipline.  In  the  case  of  a  general  stimulus 
this  recurrence,  carrying  with  it  the  possibility  of  the  contin- 
ual operation  of  the  habit,  is  more  likely,  though  by  no  means 
certain.  A  stimulus  may  be  generally  useful  without  being 
frequently  useful. 

The  greatest  certainty  of  frequency  results  from  adequate 
regularity  of  recurrence.  This  is  why  the  Church  seeks  to 
associate  firmly  acts  of  religious  devotion  with  certain  hours 
or  events  of  the  day.  Once  so  associated,  they  are  as  certain 
to  occur  as  the  sun  is  to  rise  and  set. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  a  scientific  age,  with  educational 
discussion  so  closely  focused  upon  the  question  of  disci- 
Continuity  pli^^?  the  bearing  of  the  persistency  or  non-per- 
lacking  in  sistency  of  habit  upon  the  ultimate  disciplinary 
*m  "^°f°^'  value  of  the  so-called  disciplinary  branches  has 
su  jec  .  ^^^  \^QQ_Yi  taken  into  account.  From  the  stand- 
point of  immediate  and  temporary  specific  discipline,  the  dis- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  73 

ciplinary  possibilities  of  the  abstract  subject  are  strong,  both  \ 
from  the  general  form  of  its  stimuli  and  the  continual  recur-  / 
rence  resulting  from  their  general  form  and  relative  fewness. 
Its  discipline,  however,  is  likely  to  be  only  immediate  and  1 
temporary  except  in  the  case  of  the  specialist.  To  the  general 
student,  for  example,  the  value  of  mathematical  discipline 
declines  as  soon  as  he  ceases  to  come  into  occasional  and  fairly 
frequent  contact  with  the  combinations  of  symbols  or  lines 
and  angles  which  constitute  the  stimuli  to  the  great  mass  of 
mathematical  judgments.  Occasional  and  accidental  con- 
tact with  their  stimuli  may  serve  to  revive  habits,  but  cer- 
tain contact  with  a  frequency  whose  exact  determination  is 
an  important  problem  of  educational  method,  is  necessary  to 
their  persistence  and  automatic  operation.  Even  the  few 
moral  or  intellectual  habits  made  temporarily  certain  by 
mathematics  within  the  mathematical  field,  either  may  fail 
through  inadequate  method  to  have  a  general  stimulus  and 
other  conditions  soon  to  be  discussed  as  necessary  to  general 
appHcation,  or  may  be  formed  far  more  economically  than 
in  connection  with  a  multitude  of  purely  mathematical  habits 
requiring  in  the  aggregate  an  immense  amount  of  time  for 
their  development  and  temporary  retention. 

To  sum  up — specific  discipline  as  involving  the  develop- 
ment of  complex  systems  of  habit  is  primarily  essential  to  the 
direct  furtherance  of  each  phase  of  the  educational  aim,  in- 
cluding properly  subordinated  and  specifically  related  aca- 
demic systems  in  parts  or  as  wholes,  such  as  civil  government 
as  related  to  citizenship  and  various  operations  of  arithmetic 
as  related  to  business  practice.  Of  these  directly  useful  sys- 
tems, every  generally  useful  moral  or  intellectual  habit 
should  ultimately  form  a  dominant  part.  It  may  be  first 
developed  in  the  home  or  in  the  school,  through  conduct  or 
through  academic  study,  but  it  is  capable  of  being  developed 
through  direct  preparation  alone.  Each  academic  subject 
essential  to  direct  preparation  or  to  specialization,  should 
make  every  generally  useful  habit  sure,  but  it  is  not  always 
practicable  in  the  academic  field  to  give  a  generally  useful 


74  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

habit,  the  general  stimulus  necessary  to  general  discipline. 
System  as  a  whole  does  not  carry  over  beyond  the  special 
field.  Hence,  the  more  difficult  the  system  is  to  master  and 
the  more  adequate  its  specific  discipline,  the  less  likely  is  its 
mastery  to  be  essential  on  the  ground  of  general  discipline 
alone.  Any  habit  that  is  useful  in  various  fields  of  experience 
is  capable  of  being  effectively  developed  in  various  fields  of 
experience. 

From  this  point  of  view,  a  particular  branch  of  mathe- 
matics or  a  particular  language  or  natural  science,  cannot  be 
justifiably  required  of  all.  As  a  whole,  through 
subjects'for  certain  of  its  constituent  habits,  it  may  furnish 
the  sake  general  discipline  to  the  specialist.  Through 
of  general  some  of  its  directly  useful  parts  it  may  become 
alone.  ^^  ^  general  discipline  to  all.  But  no  one  should 
be  required  to  master  it  as  a  whole  or  in  part  only 
for  the  sake  of  some  generally  useful  habits  which  it  certainly 
develops.  Even  though  regardless  of  pedagogic  method  it 
develops  them  more  certainly  than  any  other  branch  of  study, 
they  can  be  as  certainly  formed  with  the  aid  of  effective 
pedagogical  method  through  direct  preparation  for  life.  More 
than  this,  if  academic  organization  were  necessary  to  the 
development  of  generally  useful  habits,  direct  preparation  in- 
cludes enough  academic  subjects  as  wholes  or  in  parts  to  en- 
sure it. 

As  involving  the  development  of  single  habits  or  groups 
of  habits,  specific  discipline  is  essential  to  the  certain 
usefulness  and  increases  the  probability  of  the  indirect 
and  general  usefulness  of  each  other  fundamental  form 
of  educational  self-activity. 

Impression  is  certainly  useful  only  when  its 
Specific  feelings  are  specifically  centered  upon  a  common 
discipline  ^^^^  qj.  gj-Qup  of  ideas,  and  more  likely  to  be  in- 
the  useful-  cidentally  developed  when  instruction  has  cer- 
ness  of  tainly  associated  with  the  common  center  a  few 

?^rm^l^^  If-  ii^cidents  which  will  make  it  emotional.  Mere 
activity.         remembrance  is  most  likely  to  be  useful  if  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  75 

partial  concept  which  holds  the  thought  in  mind  is  one 
determined  by  instruction  and  specifically  related  to  some 
phase  of  the  educational  aim. 

Apperception  is  certainly  useful  within  a  limited  sphere 
and  more  likely  to  be  useful  in  all  of  its  many-sidedness,  if 
the  few  relationships  in  which  a  highly  useful  idea  is  most 
useful  are  specifically  associated  with  it.  And  the  operation 
and  the  usefulness  of  even  general  discipline  itself  will  be 
found  on  analysis  to  depend  not  only  upon  the  certainty  and 
the  continuity  of  the  specific  relationship  which  is  to  be 
generally  applied,  but  upon  other  fixed  relationships,  in  the 
absence  of  which  the  habit  most  many-sided  in  its  potential 
usefulness  has  httle  likelihood  of  being  carried  over. 

A  realization  of  the  fundamental  necessity  of  specific  dis- 
cipline carries  with  it  renewed  appreciation  of  the  fundamental 
necessity  of  mechanical  memorizing.  It  does  not 
justify  mechanical  memorizing  per  se,  but  the  discipline 
mechanical  memorizing  of  essential  relationships,  involves 
It  does  not  involve  reaction  into  the  age  of  ^!!?f,^j^„ 
Squeers  and  Gadgrind,  with  its  verbatim  mastery 
of  text-books,  rules,  and  definitions  including  a  mass  of 
details  incapable  of  aiding  memory  or  compelling  thought. 
It  does  not  involve  even  a  partial  revival  of  the  Procrustean 
curriculum  in  which  individualism  was  crushed  by  the  re- 
morseless force  of  formal  discipline.  But  it  does  make  neces- 
sary as  economical  a  use  as  possible  of  such  portion  of  each 
school  day  as  can  be  effectively  spent  in  the  mechanical  mem- 
orizing and  recall  of  the  specific  relationships  which  not  only 
in  complex  systems  of  thought  and  other  activity  directly 
prepare  for  useful  living,  but  which  give  the  highest  probability 
of  usefulness  to  the  impression,  mere  remembrance,  varying 
apperception,  and  general  discipline  which  indirectly  further 
the  same  end.  The  determination  of  the  relationships  thus 
essential  is  one  of  the  most  important  functions  of  the  science 
of  education,  and  is  tentatively  discussed  in  the  following 
chapter.  When  physiological  and  psychological  conditions 
so  seriously  limit  the  time  that  can  be  effectively  spent  in 


76  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

memorizing,  when  individuals  vary  so  greatly  in  their  native 
retentiveness,  the  mastery  of  non-essential  details  or  of  merely 
formal  disciplines  is  a  crime  against  both  the  development 
of  individuality  and  social  progress.  It  is  with  scientific 
appreciation  of  the  pedagogical  value  of  the  little  time  avail- 
able for  memorizing  and  specific  discipline  that  Alexander 
Bain  asserted  that  the  study  of  the  classics  in  place  of  train- 
ing the  memory  expends  it.^^ 

9.  General  Discipline,  the  Phase  of  Formal  Self-activity  which 
Ensures  the  Widest  Useful  Application  for  Useful  Rela- 
tionships 

If  there  were  no  limit  to  the  anticipation  of  useful  relation- 
ships and  no  limit  in  time  or  in  physiological  conditions  to  the 
number  of  relationships  that  could  be  made  certain  by  spe- 
cific discipline,  instruction  could,  theoretically  at  least,  pre- 
pare for  every  emergency  in  life  without  the  mediation  of 
general  discipline.  The  teacher  would  become  a  prophet; 
man,  an  automaton.  It  is  the  necessity  for  the  mediation  of 
general  discipline  and  the  uncertainty  of  its  useful  operation 
that  makes  man  both  a  responsible  being  and  a  creature  of 
circumstance.  On  the  one  hand,  its  limit  lies  in  varying  ap- 
perception— the  extent  of  whose  many-sidedness  of  possible 
relationships  narrows  or  broadens  the  field  in  which  habits 
can  operate;  on  the  other,  in  specific  discipline — the  cer- 
tainty of  whose  persistence  and  the  relative  abstractness  of 
whose  general  stimulus  lessen  or  increase  the  number  of 
habits  which  can  be  carried  over. 

Joseph  Payne  and  Herbart  were  equally  conscious  of  the 
inadequacy  of  specific  discipline.  But  Joseph  Payne  sought 
to  supplement  it  by  formal  discipline  which,  emphasizing  the 
specific  discipline  of  an  academic  subject  and  ignoring  many- 
sidedness,  except  in  so  far  as  the  Latin  language  ensured  it, 
took  universal  application  for  granted.  While  Herbart 
sought  to  supplement  it  through  many-sidedness  and  in  his 
five  formal  steps  to  ensure  general  application  not  only 
without  the  specific  discipline  of  an  academic  subject,  but 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  77 

without  making  clear  or  perhaps  clearly  perceiving  that  his 
circles  of  thought  must  in  themselves  become  specific  disci- 
plines or  center  about  them.     Certain  of  his  followers  have 
come  to  emphasize  the  importance  of  the  specific  discipline 
peculiar  to  any  branch  of  knowledge  and,  consequently,  spe- 
cialization.   They  have  as  yet  failed  at  two  points.    First,  in 
failing  to  perceive  the  fundamental  necessity  of  specific  disci- 
pline through  direct  preparation  for  life,  that  is,  of  specific 
discipline  based  on  cumulative  organization  and  systematiza- 
tion  of  material  in  relationships  which  directly  further  each 
general  phase  of  the  educational  aim.     Second,  in  failing 
to  realize  the  fact  that  the  general  discipline    ^j^^  <,g 
whose  importance  they  minimize  is  involved  in    cific  disci- 
the  general  application  of  specific  habits  even    pline"  of  a 
within  the  field  of  the  academic  specialty  which    branch 
develops  it.     That   is,    '^specific   discipline,"   in    involves 
the  sense  in  which  Professor  De  Garmo  uses  the    ^?^®^^.^ 
term,^^  is  impossible  without  general  discipline 
of  precisely  the  same  sort  that  is  necessary  to  carry  over  aj 
habit  into  some  field  into  which  the  whole  system  of  which 
it  is  a  part  cannot  be  carried.     It  is  little  less  difiicult,  for 
example,  after  a  mathematical  proposition  has  been  demon- 
strated and  its  premises  and  conclusions  habitually  associated 
with  each  other,  to  apply  it  within  the  mathematical  field  itself 
— say  to  originals  in  geometry — than  to  apply  other  habits 
quite  outside  of  the  field  of  knowledge  in  which  they  are 
formed.     This  means  that  the  scope  of  general  discipline  is 
broad  enough  to  include  specific  discipline  in  any  other  sense 
than  the  formation  of  a  particular  habit.     Greater  dissimi- 
larities and  complexities  may  stand  in  the  way  of  the  applica- 
tion of  a  particular  habit  within  a  branch  than  of  the  outside 
application  of  another  formed  in  the  same  field.     The  true 
general  discipline  is  the  carrying  over  of  a  habit  to  any  en- 
vironment in  which  it  is  more  difiicult  to  recognize  its  stimulus 
than  that  in  which  it  was  formed. 

It  is  the  habit  that  is  specific  and  its  application  that  is 
general.    The  Herbartians  come  nearer  to  the  true  problem 


78  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

when  they  investigate  specific  and  useful  apperception,  which 
culminates  through  generalization  in  application.  If  they 
had  been  as  persistent  in  investigating  "application"  as 
"presentation"  and  "preparation,"  the  problem  might  have 
already  been  solved. 

There  is  little  choice  between  an  academic  cocksureness, 
which  assumes  general  discipline  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
a  pedagogical  skepticism,  which  has  been  trying  to  ignore  it 
altogether.  In  either  case  it  continues  to  operate  incidentally 
without  the  assistance  of  a  scientific  method  which  will 
ensure  for  it  the  broadest  operation  that  is  useful. 

No  experimentation  is  necessary  to  demonstrate  that  it 
does  operate  incidentally.  What  experimentation  has 
demonstrated  is  that  it  does  not  operate  as  a 
^^foT^^^'  ^^^^^^  ^^  course.  Even  its  incidental  exercise, 
proves  aside  from  the  effects  of  variations  in  experience 

general  and  instruction,  varies  greatly  with  individuals 
uncertSn.  ^^  proportion  to  their  native  retentiveness,  their 
physiological  capability  of  readily  multiplying 
associations,  their  sense  of  discrimination  and  ability  to 
identify.  But  that  it  is  exercised  every  individual  can  dis- 
cover for  himself,  either  through  noting  his  every-day  experi- 
ence or  from  a  glance  at  the  history  of  human  thought. 
Investigators,  having  formed  the  habits  of  thought  peculiar 
to  physics,  carried  them  over  into  psychology  and  psycho- 
physics,  a  new  science,  was  born.  Every  great  invention, 
almost  every  apperception  of  a  new  idea,  and  many  an  appli- 
cation of  ideas  that  are  old  involve  the  carrying  over  of 
some  fixed  relationship  into  a  new  environment.  In  many  of 
us  general  discipline  operates  within  restricted  and  familiar 
fields,  in  the  most  of  us  it  operates  far  too  little. 


CHAPTER  III 

A   DISCUSSION    OF   THE    CONDITIONS    FAVORABLE   TO 
GENERAL    DISCIPLINE 

Granted  a  habit  or  sequence  of  ideas  certainly  formed  and 
persistently  recalled,  with  a  stimulus  as  general  as  is  useful — 
and  the  fundamental  problem  of  general  disci-   ^j^g  f^^da- 
pline  is  (i)  To  what  extent  can  it  be  carried  over  mental 
into  other  fields  of  knowledge  and  experience?  (2)   problem 
To  what  extent  will  it  be  useful  to  carry  it  over?   disdpUne! 
and  (3)  what  are  the  conditions  which  must  be 
present  to  make  its  useful  application  as  probable  as  pos- 
sible?42 

I.  Extent  of  General  Discipline  Dependent  Upon  Recurrence  of 
the  General  Stimulus 
Obviously,  the  extent  to  which  a  fixed  relationship  can 
carry  over  into  other  fields  of  knowledge  and  experience  than 
the  one  in  which  it  is  developed,  is  dependent      .     ,     . 
upon  whether  or  not  the  usual  stimulus  is  to  be      systems 
foxmd  there,  and  whether  or  not  the  usual  conse-      cannot 
quence  or  a  modified  consequence  can  follow.     In      as^^hol^s^ 
the  first  place,  no  system  of  thought  as  a  whole 
can  carry  over,   though  component    habits  or  groups  of 
habits  can.     The  various  systems  of  habits  on  which  the 
specific    discipline    of    mathematics    is    based    can    apply 
only  in  the  mathematical  field.     They  can  become  general 
within  that  field  and  apply  to  physics,  chemistry,  or  engi- 
neering, but  their  application  is  always  mathematical.   This 
is  equally  true  of  every  other  complex  system  of  ideas  and 
activities.    Systems  are  specific — not  general — in  their  useful- 
ness.    Mathematics  cannot  take  the  place  of  geography;  or 
geography,  of  citizenship  or  industrial  efficiency.    One  system 


8o  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

may  include  another  or  require  another  to  supplement  it. 
One  or  more  mathematical  systems  are  required  by  each  of  the 
sciences  and  by  many  branches  of  industry.  Industry  in 
most  of  its  forms  requires  sciences  as  wholes  or  in  parts,  as 
well  as  a  system  of  ideas  and  activities  directly  preparatory 
to  all  forms  of  industry.  But  the  systems  do  not  carry  over 
to  other  systems  because  they  are  specific  in  their  organi- 
zation. 

On  the  other  hand,  their  component  habits  and  groups  of 
habits  may  or  may  not  be  capable  of  carrying  over.  The 
habitual  mathematical  judgments  suggested  by  combina- 
tions of  Hnes  or  symbols  cannot,  because  in  such  connection 
they  are  foimd  only  in  the  mathematical  field.  Often  they 
cannot  carry  over  even  from  one  branch  of  mathematics  to 
another.  The  habits  of  algebra  operate  but  little  in  geometry, 
or  those  of  geometry,  in  trigonometry.  In  the  case  of  the 
languages,  however,  certain  relationships  very  commonly 
find  their  stimulus  in  all  languages,  depending  in  each  upon 
the  extent  to  which  the  forms  of  language  have  been  devel- 
oped. But  they  cannot  operate  in  fields  other  than  the 
languages  because  their  stimulus  or  consequence  does  not 
occur.     The  relationship  is  not  there. 

Even  habits  which  have  a  sufficiently  general  stimulus  to 
be  carried  over  are  not  necessarily  connected  with  that  general 
stimulus  in  the  mind  of  the  mass  of  learners.  Observation, 
analysis,  synthesis — immediate  or  progressive — discrimina- 
tion, identification,  industry,  and  persistency  can  have  as 
their  stimulus  any  group  of  things,  but  since  such  a  stimulus 
would  be  too  general,  are  actually  stimulated  by  particular 
kinds  of  things.  It  follows  that  the  very  "thoroughness''  of 
a  formal  discipline  tends  toward  the  specific  rather  than  the 
general.  It  makes  a  specific  system  sure,  but  system  cannot 
be  carried  over.  It  makes  symbols,  lines,  and  grammatical 
ideas  highly  certain  stimuli,  but  the  more  certain  it  makes 
them  the  more  surely  the  resulting  habits  are  combined  in 
the  system,  the  more  difl&cult  it  may  be  to  associate  resulting 
activities  with  some  other  specific  stimulus. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  8 1 

When  the  useful  general  stimulus  is  not  so  general  in  its 
form  as  to  prevent  its  being  actually  substituted  for  the 
specific  one  which  is  being  made  certain,  some  of  the  virtue 
of  "thoroughness"  may  be  handed  over.  The  boy  who  is 
habitually  obedient  to  a  particular  individual,  or  the  soldier 
to  a  military  superior,  can  be  drilled  into  associating  with 
specific  or  soldierly  obedience,  obedience  to  any  one  having 
the  right  to  command,  rather  than  with  a  particular  tone  of 
voice  or  a  uniform.  Even  here,  unless  the  stimulus  is  to  be 
a  mere  command,  typical  stimuli  such  as  parent,  teacher, 
policeman,  ship  officer,  etc.,  must  be  in  turn  associated  with 
the  general  stimulus,  not  to  make  it  more  general,  but  to 
make  it  general  in  a  particular  field  where  its  exercise  is 
useful.  Even  obedience  to  God's  law  must  be  associated 
with  "children  obey  your  parents,"  "servants,  your  masters," 
and  the  idea  of  obedience  to  law. 

But  where,  as  in  the  case  of  formal  discipline  or,  indeed, 
of  that  of  a  natural  science,  the  only  general  stimulus  alterna- 
tive to  the  specific  one  is  too  general  to  be  useful 
or  profitable,  carrying  over  is  impossible  except   discipUne 
through  the  association  of  other  specific  and,  where   sometimes 
possible,  typical  stimuli  with  the  original  one  Possible 
itself,  combined  with  sufficient  practice  in  carry-  through 
ing  over  to  prevent  the  negative  effect  of  not  multiplying 
obeying  the  stimulus.    One  cannot  observe  every-   g^^J^? 
thing,  synthesize  all  details,   or  be  industrious 
in  every  field  of  experience.     More  than  this,  where  a  par- 
ticular field  of  knowledge  is  so  general  in  its  extent  in  time  or 
space,  as  to  be  continually  presenting  its  details,  its  specific 
stimuli  may  be  so  all-pervasive  as  to  shut  out  or  at  least  tend 
to  prevent  observation,  synthesis,  or  industry  in  any  other 
field.    The  thorough  botanist  is  less  likely  to  observe  rocks 
and  birds  on  account  of  his  habit  of  observing  flowers.     Sir 
Isaac  Newton  boiled  hi^  egg-shaped  watch  while  holding  an 
egg  in  his  hand,  took  off  his  hat  to  a  cow,  and  fell  into  a  ditch, 
not  because  he  was  a  poor  observer,  but  because  he  was  an 
observer  of  the  stars.    At  times,  when  the  habit,  through  the 

6 


82  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

thoroughness  of  its  exercise  in  one  field  of  experience,  is  not 
of  necessity  excluded  in  all  others,  it  can  be  carried  over  into 
other  fields  specifically  and  continually  associated  with  the 
general  stimulus.  A  thorough  observer  in  chemistry  can  be 
readily  led  to  observe  in  physics  or  in  the  affairs  connected 
with  some  ordinary  business  if,  as  he  observes  in  his  chemistry 
the  idea  of  observing  in  the  other  field  is  made  habitual,  un- 
less, notwithstanding  his  thought  of  observing,  continually 
confronted  with  the  other  field,  he  habitually  fails  to  observe. 
That  is,  while  he  need  not  be  drilled  on  observation  in  the 
newer  fields  until  they  themselves  become  specific  disci- 
plines, he  must  be  drilled  in  carrying  the  thorough  habit  over. 
It  clearly  follows,  first,  that,  altogether  aside  from  the 
argument,  based  upon  the  necessity  for  continuity  of  the 
Habits  habit,  which  is  to  be  carried  over,  the  field  of 

should  be  study  in  which  a  particular  habit,  general  in  its 
th^^^td^  usefulness,  should  be  formed  and  consequently 
where  they  made  certain,  is  the  one  in  which  it  will  continue 
are  most  to  be  most  useful;  and  second,  that  its  general 
useful.  stimulus  should  be  continually  associated  with 

other,  and,  so  far  as  can  be,  typical  fields  in  which  it  ought 
to  operate  most  frequently.  This  means  that  except  in  the 
case  of  specialization,  habits  generally  useful  should  be  formed 
through  direct  preparation  for  some  phase  of  life.  No  sub- 
ject should  be  required  of  all  students  on  account  of  its  dis- 
ciplinary value  alone,  no  matter  how  certain  the  specific 
discipline  that  it  compels  or  how  numerous  its  generally 
useful  habits  that  can  be  carried  over  into  other  fields  of 
experience. 

2.  Necessity  for  Determining  the  Extent  to  Which  It  Is  Useful 
to  Carry  a  Habit  Over 
The  importance  of  determining  the  extent  to  which  it  is 
useful  to  carry  a  habit  over  has  been  abundantly  demons- 
trated in  the  preceding  discussion.  Not  all  general  discipline 
is  useful.  The  habit  with  a  general  stimulus  may  be  inci- 
dentally carried  over,  when  the  individual  forming  the  habit 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  8$ 

is  not  conscious  that  it  is  general  If  the  trained  observer, 
for  example,  becomes  interested  in  some  new  field,  we  may, 
so  far  as  is  permitted  by  conditions  yet  to  be  discussed,  apply 
the  habit  of  observation,  already  formed,  usefully  or  harm- 
fully, as  may  happen  to  be  the  case.  It  is  the  province  of 
instruction  to  see  that  as  the  habit  is  formed  its  stimulus  is 
made  as  general  as  may  be  useful.  This,  as  has  just  been 
indicated,  can  be  done  in  two  ways:  First,  in  cases  where 
there  is  no  alternative  except  between  the  stimulus  specific 
in  the  field  in  which  the  habit  is  formed  and  one  so  general 
that  it  can  carry  over  into  fields  where  it  will  not  be  useful,  it 
must  be  continually  associated  in  actual  practice  with  other 
fields  in  which  it  ought  to  operate.  It  may  carry  too  far. 
It  may  scarcely  carry  at  all.  But  it  will  be  most  Ukely  to 
carry  to  the  fields  to  which  it  has  more  or  less  frequently 
been  applied.  Of  course,  if  it  is  applied  often  enough  in  any 
one  of  them  to  actually  become  habitual,  a  new  specific  dis- 
cipline will  have  resulted. 

Second,  in  cases  where  it  can  be  put  in  the  relatively  more 
general  form  in  which  it  is  most  useful,  the  specific  discipline 
itself  should  constitute  a  continual  application  of  the  more 
general  stimulus,  which  thereby  becomes  potentially  and  use- 
fully specific  in  a  far  wider  field.  If,  for  example,  obedience, 
like  observation,  could  be  made  generally  useful  only  by  asso- 
ciating it  with  obedience  in  school,  obedience  to  parents, 
obedience  to  law,  and  so  on,  it  would  be  less  likely  to  carry  over 
usefully  than  when  the  more  general  stimulus  of  any  com- 
mand from  one  who  has  the  right  to  exact  obedience  is  con- 
tinually associated  with  each  habitual  stimulus.  The  first 
sort  of  limitation  merely  multiplies  specific  fields  of  useful- 
ness; the  second  ensures  a  field  of  application  far  wider  than 
the  specific  fields  can  collectively  be. 

3.  Continuity  the  First  Condition  to  General  Discipline 
Certain  of  the  conditions  essential  to  general  discipline 
have  already  been  discussed:  First,  continuity  of  specific  dis- 
cipline.    Since  the  system  peculiar  to  a  particular  branch  as  a 


84  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

whole  does  not  carry  over,  it  is  apparent  that  unless  it  is  in 
itself  directly  useful  it  is  not  essential  that  it  should  continue 
as  a  whole.  It  is  essential  only  that  any  constituent  habits 
or  groups  of  habits  that  are  generally  useful  should  continue 
and  carry  over.  If  they  are  generally  useful,  it  follows  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  they  can  be  developed  outside  of  a 
special  branch,  and  hence  in  case  the  general  branch  is  not 
directly  useful  that  they  should  be  developed  outside  of  it. 
The  reasons  for  this  are  clear.  It  is  wasteful  to  study  the 
special  branch  if  its  only  use  is  the  mastery  of  specific  rela- 
tionships which  can  be  developed  elsewhere — the  more 
thorough  and  certain  the  specific  discipline  as  a  whole,  the 
greater  the  waste,  both  in  point  of  time  necessary  for  the 
thoroughness  and  in  the  tendency  for  the  useful  specific  rela- 
tionships to  suggest  the  useless  system  in  place  of  systems 
in  which  they  are  themselves  directly  useful.  Since  the 
special  branch  that  is  not  directly  useful  even  as  avocation  or 
through  specialization  is  likely  to  lose  its  continuity,  its  useful 
relationships  must  be  made  habitual  in  some  other  field  of 
knowledge  or  experience  before  they  are  forgotten  with  the 
rest  of  the  branch  as  a  whole.  It  is  easier  to  develop  them 
in  the  first  place  as  part  of  a  system  in  which  they  can  con- 
tinue, and  easier  to  continue  them  in  the  system  in  which  they 
r,    ..    ..       are  first  developed.     More  than  this,  in  the  case 

Continuity  ^,^  ,,  i.  ^  ^     ^     ^  - 

more  prob-  of  the  formal  or  abstract  subject,  the  only  habits 
able  for  that  can  carry  over  are  those,  such  as  observation, 
fo«ned  analysis,  synthesis,  perseverance,  and  industry, 

through  which,  owing  to  the  fact  that  their  most  general 
direct  prep-  stimuli — the  only  alternatives  to  the  specific 
stimuli  pecuhar  to  the  abstract  branch — cannot 
be  usefully  substituted  for  them,  must  after  all  be  developed 
by  persistent  exercise  in  each  field  in  which  they  are  useful 
to  the  individual.  They  will  be  more  readily  developed  in  any 
field  because  they  have  already  been  developed  in  some  one, 
but  why  not  in  one  in  which  they  will  continue  to  be  useful,  or 
at  least  in  one  which  is  directly  useful  while  it  lasts?  A  boy 
coming  into  the  city  from  the  country  to  go  into  business 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  8$ 

would  be  better  equipped  for  his  work  if  he  had  been  trained 
to  remorseless  industry  and  routine  in  it,  rather  than  in  the 
work  of  the  farm.  He  might  have  been  as  adequately  drilled  to 
work  and  to  persevere  through  the  study  of  the  higher  mathe- 
matics or  Sanskrit,  undertaken  on  account  of  their  remote- 
ness from  his  life,  but  while  he  has  been  at  work  on  the  farm 
he  has  been  of  use  in  the  world  and  has  added  to  his  habits 
of  labor  a  consciousness  of  the  necessity  of  work,  as  immedi- 
ately useful  in  itself,  under  conditions  more  nearly  identical 
with  work  in  general,  than  are  those  involved  in  abstract  study. 

The  multitude  of  fixed  relationships  involved  in  abstract 
study  die  with  it  because  they  are  incapable  of  being  related 
to  life.  In  any  specific  discipline,  whether  of  life  or  of  study, 
the  only  chance  for  continuity  on  the  part  of  habits  with 
stimuli  which,  like  those  to  industry  and  analysis,  have  no 
other  alternatives  than  being  variously  specific  or  becoming 
too  general,  lies  in  their  fullest  useful  relationship  to  other 
fields  of  knowledge  and  experience  which  are  to  continue  as 
a  part  of  every-day  life. 

The  foregoing  arguments  are  in  themselves  overwhelmingly 
conclusive  against  the  required  study  of  subjects  useful  for 
their  general  disciplinary  value  alone,  but  others  will  be  added 
which  are  in  themselves  strong  enough  to  be  convincing. 

4.  The  Second  Condition  to  General  Discipline,  Habitual 
Consciousness  of  as  General  a  Stimulus  as  Is  Useful 
The  second  condition  to  general  discipline  is  as  general  a 
stimulus  as  is  useful,  of  whose  general  meaning  the  individual 
forming  the  habit  is  made  habitually  conscious  by  effective 
pedagogic  method.  The  specific  discipline  may  provide  a 
sufficiently  general  stimulus,  but  only  effective  pedagogical 
method  will  make  the  learner  conscious  of  it.  For  example, 
the  fundamental  principles  of  percentage  are  so  general  in 
their  form  as  to  be  universal  in  their  application.  Anything 
can  be  conceived  of  in  terms  of  hundreds.  To  the  ordinary 
pupil,  however,  "base"  is  as  concrete  and  narrow  a  term  as 
"cost"  or  "par  value."    The  term  base  must  be  so  consciously 


86  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  persistently  associated  with  the  idea  of  hundreds  on  which 
a  certain  number  of  hundredths  are  to  be  taken  that  it  is 
associated  not  merely  as  a  name,  but  in  its  general  meaning 
with  per  cent.,  just  as  percentage,  in  turn,  must  come  to  sug- 
gest the  number  of  hundredths  taken  and  the  resulting 
hundredths  on  all  the  hundreds.  Otherwise,  the  general 
principles  are  not  general — even  within  the  arithmetical  field. 

In  the  case  of  other  mathematical  subjects,  such 
^Tmmat-^^  as  geometry  and  algebra,  from  the  standpoint  of 
ical  nomen-  mechanical  operation,  the  stimulus  is  general, 
clature  a  both  in  form  and  meaning.  If  their  relationships 
application.    ^^^  mastered  at  all,  they  usually  are  mastered 

with  both  the  general  form  and  the  general  mean- 
ing that  will  make  them  useful.  In  the  case  of  the  languages, 
and  more  especially  the  grammar  of  the  English  language,  the 
general  terminology  is  at  many  points  so  hopelessly  conflicting 
that  the  general  meaning  of  a  stimulus  has  to  be  associated 
with  as  many  as  six  or  seven  different  general  terms  denoting 
it.  Mr.  W.  G.  McMullin,  for  example,  has  shown  that  in 
the  elementary  grammar  and  language  works  used  in  the 
city  of  Philadelphia  alone,  it  is  possible,  though,  of  course,  not 
probable,  for  a  pupil  to  have  to  learn  thirty-one  names  for 
but  seven  different  constructions.^ 

Here  the  final  remedy  is  selection  of  some  one  general  term 
for  each  general  relationship  by  a  national  committee  suffi- 
ciently representative  to  compel  universal  acceptance. 
Largely  through  the  efforts  of  Professor  C.  R.  Rounds,  of  the 
State  Normal  School  at  Whitewater,  Wisconsin,  and  of 
Professor  Hale,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  the  National 
Education  Association,  in  191 1,  actually  appointed  such  a 
committee  to  confer  with  similar  committees  from  the 
American  Philological  Association  and  the  Modern  Lan- 
guages Association  of  America,  which  had  made  abortive 
effort  in  the  same  direction  in  1906.^  The  immediate  remedy 
is  the  requirement  that  every  teacher  of  grammar  shall  be 
famihar  with  a  sufficient  number  of  the  terms  in  use  to  pre- 
vent her  from  calling  a  pupil  wrong  who  makes  correct  use  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  87 

some  one  of  them  not  included  in  a  particular  text.  To 
require  itinerant  pupils  to  master  successively  three  or  four 
different  terms  for  the  same  general  relationship  is  confusing 
in  a  high  degree,  and  an  obstacle  even  to  specific  discipline  in 
the  sense  of  general  discipline  within  a  particular  branch. 

In  most  branches  of  knowledge  or  fields  of  experience  there 
is  the  added  difficulty  that  the  specific  discipline,  in  place  of 
failing  to  associate  a  general  meaning  with  a  general  stimulus, 
establishes  a  relationship  whose  stimulus  is  concrete,  not  only 
in  form  of  expression,  but  in  its  inclusiveness  as  well.  Here 
the  method  by  which  the  learner  is  made  conscious  of  the 
general  meaning  of  the  stimulus  depends  upon  whether  the 
stimulus  can  be  made  just  general  enough  in  form  to  be  useful, 
or  whether  there  is  no  alternative  between  concrete  stimuli 
and  one  too  general  to  be  useful.  In  the  case  of  obedience 
there  is  such  an  alternative.  The  stimulus  to  obedience  by 
which  the  habit  is  first  formed  may  be  highly  ^i^^  jj^^g^ 
concrete — the  mother's  request  twice  repeated,  generaUy 
the  father's  order  sternly  put  or  the  command  of  a  useful 
policeman  or  military  superior,  but  each  has  as  should  re- 
its  possible  alternative  not  merely  a  harmful  place  the 
obedience  to  any  command,  but  obedience  to  any  coJ^cJ^ete. 
order  that  is  not  evil  given  by  one  who  has  the  right  to  com- 
mand the  one  to  whom  it  is  given.  In  this  case,  conscious- 
ness of  the  general  meaning  of  the  stimulus  should  be  brought 
about  through  the  persistent  substitution  of  the  generally 
useful  form  for  the  concrete  one,  and  its  equally  persistent 
association  with  its  general  meaning. 

If  this  persistent  repetition  is  necessary  in  the  case  of  a 
simple  general  stimulus  and  its  consequences,  it  is  all  the 
more  necessary  when  the  general  stimulus  itself  consists  of  a 
sequence  or  group  of  general  ideas.  In  this  case  two  dis- 
tinct associations  are  to  be  made  permanent,  that  of  the  parts 
of  the  stimulus  with  each  other  and  that  of  the  stimulus  with 
its  consequence.  For  example,  the  association  of  seaport  with 
commerce  is  as  incidental  to  geography  as  one  of  the  axioms 
to  geometry.     But  equally  firm  and  mechanical  association 


88  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

of  climate,  physiography,  natural  products,  manufactures, 
and  commerce,  in  general  logical  sequence  with  a  geographical 
description  of  any  country,  is  not  so  incidental.  Most 
children  in  a  grammar  school  will  follow  some  such  outline 
as  they  study  each  country,  and  perhaps  be  questioned  by 
their  teacher  into  making  "for  themselves"  a  separate  out- 
line for  each,  without  gaining  an  iota  in  independent  think- 
ing or  advancing  one  step  toward  general  discipline.  If  in 
connection  with  their  first  lesson  on  a  country  as  a  whole, 
however,  they  should  mechanically  memorize  this  general 
sequence  in  its  general  form,  they  would  have  something 
which  they  could  be  led  to  remember  by  and  think  with  as 
they  come  to  study  the  description  of  each  new  country. 
This  is  what  the  McMurrys  and  other  Herbartians  mean 
The  essen-  ^^  ^^^  "type-study,"  but  the  type-study  is  fre- 
tial  similar-  quently  understood  to  be  merely  the  selection  of 
ity  in  type  a  typical  thing  and  the  teaching  of  it  in  detail, 
must^be  Minneapolis  is  a  type  of  a  manufacturing  center, 
retained  in  but  the  detailed  study  of  Minneapolis  for  several 
general  days  will  not  make  it  so.  First  from  all  details 
related  to  it  must  be  selected  those  that  are 
common  to  most  manufacturing  centers — accessibility  of  raw 
material,  cheap  means  of  getting  it  to  the  manufacturing 
center,  motive  power,  cheap  means  of  getting  the  product  to 
market.  Then  they  should  be  certainly  memorized  and  re- 
tained, in  association  with  each  other  and  with  the  judgment 
manufacturing  center.  Usually,  if  they  are  separated  out  and 
memorized  at  all,  it  is  likely  to  be  in  the  more  narrowly  useful 
form  of  wheat  fields  of  Minnesota  and  surrounding  states, 
Mississippi  River  and  parallel  railroad  lines.  Falls  of  St. 
Anthony,  and  the  Great  Lakes.  The  common  sequence  is  not 
mastered  in  the  general  form  which  makes  it  common. 
This  memorizing  and  retention  of  general  groups  of  sequences 
is  indispensable  to  the  mastery  of  any  branch  of  knowledge, 
and  equally  indispensable  to  the  realization  of  the  various 
specific  aims  included  in  direct  preparation  for  life.  It  has 
been  too  largely  ignored  in  each. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  89 

Finally,  whether  the  relationship  is  a  single  relationship 

or  a  series  of  relationships,  if  the  only  general  stimulus  that 

can   be   substituted   for   the   specific   one   with  ^  variety  of 

which  it  is  first  formed  is  so  general  that  it  may   typical  con- 

at  times  be  harmful,  the  sole  pedagogical  alterna-  crete  stim- 

tive  is  the  addition  to  it  of  a  number  of  other   alternative 

concrete  and  specific  stimuli  re-enforced,  when  for  too 

possible,  by  cumulative  impression  whose  relation  Sf.^^^f^  * 
1  1.    .  T  •     ^    1     J-  J      rx^i       stimulus, 

to  general  disciplme  remams  to  be  discussed.     1  he 

most  useful  habits  of  all,  from  the  standpoint  of  mental 
development — observation,  industry,  synthesis,  etc. — would 
be  in  part  mutually  exclusive,  if  their  stimuli  were  put  in 
the  only  general  form  which  could  be  substituted  for  the 
particular  concrete  one  peculiar  to  a  particular  branch  of 
knowledge  or  field  of  experience.  The  student  who  becomes 
a  trained  observer  in  the  field  of  chemistry  or  biology,  could 
through  the  substitution  in  the  accustomed  stimulus  to 
observation,  of  any  sort  of  details  in  place  of  chemical  or 
biological  details,  become  so  persistent  an  observer  that  he 
could  neither  work  nor  analyze.  Indeed,  it  is  from  just  this 
point  of  view  that  Mr.  Bain  criticizes  drawing  as  the  means 
to  an  observation  which  "clothes  the  particulars  with  such  a 
degree  of  concrete  interest  that  the  mind  prefers  to  remain  in 
the  concrete. "^^  "Interpreting  indications  by  applying 
previous  knowledge' ' — the  means  by  which  observation  con- 
tributes to  other  useful  habits — ^is,  as  he  further  points  out, 
"a  special  training  within  a  limited  sphere."  It  is  the  func- 
tion of  instruction  to  see  that  habits  which  thus  tend  to  be- 
come too  general  in  their  application  to  be  useful  should  have 
certainly  associated  with  the  stimuli  of  the  spheres  in  which 
they  are  developed  those  of  the  spheres  in  which  they  will  be 
most  useful  if  they  are  carried  over  at  all.  While  this  should 
include  the  development  of  these  relationships  through  the 
specific  systems  that  directly  further  health,  morality,  citi- 
zenship, industrial  efficiency,  and  other  general  phases  of  the 
educational  aim,  it  is  important  to  note  that  unlike  those  of 
the  formal  discipline  many  of  the  stimuli  of  the  natural  sci- 


QO  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

ences,  literature,  and  history  continue  to  recur  in  the  every- 
day life  of  those  who  are  not  specialists,  and  hence  that  their 
habits  often  need  not  be  carried  over  into  life  because  they 
are  already  a  part  of  it. 

From  the  standpoint  of  relationship,  and  hence  of  this 
entire  discussion,  the  traditional  distinction  between  content 
The  con-  ^^^  form  .emphasized  by  Professor  Dewey^^  and 
ditions  of      recently  reaffirmed  by  Professor  Heck^^  is  un- 

general  necessary.  Both  content  and  form  are  dependent 
discipline  "^  ,     .        ,  .  <.      i     .        ,  T 

identical  for  upon  a  relationship  or  a  set  of  relationships.     In 

form  and       the  case  of  content,  the  emphasis  is  upon  the 

content.         resulting  organization  of  the  particulars  that  are 

in  relationship;  in  that  of  form,  upon  the  mental  activity 

resulting  from  the  relationship  when  it  is  habitual,  and  has  a 

sufficiently  general  stimulus  for  it  to  be  carried  over  into 

various  fields  of  knowledge  and  experience.     In  either  case, 

whether  a  general  idea  is  accumulating  and  subordinating 

particulars  or  a  general  form  of  activity  is  being  put  to  varied 

use,  the  conditions  to  application  are  the  same. 

5.  The  Third  Condition  to  General  Discipline,  Certain  and 
Permanent  Association  of  the  General  Stimulus,  with 
Typical  Applications 

The  third  condition  to  general  discipline  is  certain  and 
permanent  association  of  the  most  useful  general  stimuli 
with  a  limited  number  of  typical  applications. 

In  "appKcation,"  the  fifth  of  the  five  Herbartian  formal 
steps,  a  relationship  with  a  general  stimulus  is  associated  for 
the  time  being  with  such  applications  as  occur  to  the  teacher 
or  the  experience  of  the  learners  suggests.  Its  inadequacy 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  usually  stops  short,  first,  of  a  repe- 
tition and  review  through  which  a  varying  number  of  the 
most  useful  and  most  typical  applications  are  as  firmly  as 
possible  associated  with  the  general  stimuli  that  are  most 
useful;  second,  of  a  sufficiently  many-sided  relating  of  the 
general  stimulus  to  common  and  individual  experience  to 
serve  the  purpose  of   varying  apperception;  and,  third,  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  91 

the  certain  association,  wherever  possible,  of  an  emotional 

center  that  will  further  cumulative  impression.     Each  of 

these  conditions  to  general  discipline  is  worthy  of  separate 

discussion. 

It  is  not  sufficient  to  determine  into  what  fields  a  habit 

can  be  carried  and  into  what  fields  it  will  be  useful  to  carry  it, 

but  it  must  be  certainly  and  permanently  associated  with  a 

variety  of  its  most  essential  applications,  not  only  to  increase 

the  likelihood  of  its  being  carried  over  to  them,  but  that 

through  both  their  variety  and  certainty  they  may  become 

the  nucleus  for  a  constantly  growing  field  of  appHcation. 

Applications  that  are  similar  only  through  the  stimulus  in  its 

most  generally  useful  form,  but  in  other  ways  strikingly  dis- 

similar  to  each  other,  will  reveal  themselves  more  readily 

through  their  stronger  similarity  to  some  one  of  these  fixed 

applications.     To  many  individuals  who  think 

themselves   honest   and   who   would   cheerfiilly     association 

accept  as  the  general  stimulus  to  honest  action     with  a 

reaHzation  of  the  fact  that  something  is  neither     typical  ^ 

morally  nor  legally  their  own,  honesty  merely  con-     fn^reases^ 

sists  in  not  stealing.     If  the  general  stimulus     likelihood 

should  be  firmly  and  tenaciously  associated  in  of  general 
,,    .         .     1        .  ,    1  r        ,  ,  .  discipline, 

their  mmds  with  lost  property  of  others  which 

they  find,  with  a  railroad  or  trolley  ticket  which  a  conductor 
has  not  collected,  with  money  which  they  morally  owe,  but 
are  not  legally  compelled  to  pay,  with  a  set  of  ideas  which 
will  pass  as  their  original  contribution  although  they  have 
gained  them  from  some  old  book  or  distant  thinker,  they  will 
not  only  tend  to  be  more  honest  in  the  specific  cases  so  as- 
sociated, but  in  others  similar  to  each. 

6.  The  Fourth  Condition  to  General  Discipline,  the  Habit  of 
Seeking  Unaccustomed  Applications  for  Each  General 
Stimulus 

The  fourth  condition  to  general  discipline  is  the  habit  of 
seeking  for  unaccustomed  applications  or  fields  of  application 
for  each  essential  general  stimulus. 


92  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Each  new  application  may  not  in  itself  become  certain  and 
habitual.  As  it  does,  it  passes  from  the  field  of  general  dis- 
cipline and  probable  application  to  that  of  specifically  useful 
habit.  The  most  that  can  be  done  through  the  indirect 
furtherance  of  the  aim  is  to  make  useful  thought  and  action 
more  probable.  "Adaptation"  is  rarer  than  application, 
because  in  its  only  certainly  useful  sense  it  reverses  the  proc- 
ess just  described.  Instead  of  a  general  stimulus  being  made 
less  general  but  stronger  through  the  addition  of  conditions 
peculiar  to  particular  sets  of  situations,  adaptation  applies 
"Power  of  ^^  usual  sequences  in  a  situation  where  the 
adaptation"  stimulus  can  be  recognized  only  in  the  most  gen- 
dependent  Qj.^1  form.  The  lost  tourist,  confronted  with  a 
ognition  chasm  and  with  retreat  cut  off,  perishes  if  the 
of  a  general  thought  of  bridge  calls  to  mind  only  the  accus- 
stimulus.  tomed  swinging  structure  of  vines  or  ropes.  The 
power  of  adaptation  that  saves  him  is  the  thought  of  any- 
thing on  which  he  can  cross,  and  hence  the  felling  of  a  tree, 
so  that  it  will  reach  to  the  other  side.  This  "sagacity' '  or 
"flash  of  recognition,"  while  naturally  possessed  by  some  in- 
dividuals in  uncommon  degree,  should  be,  so  far  as  possible, 
developed  in  all.  Students  should  be  required  to  seek  again 
and  again  for  unaccustomed  instances  of  each  essential  gen- 
eral stimulus  in  ordinary  experience — especially  in  fields  of 
experience  where  the  instructor  knows  that  it  can  be  found. 
But  where  application  is  most  vital,  instruction  must  not 
depend  upon  "the  power  of  adaptation,"  as,  for  example, 
Professor  James  confessedly  did  when  he  presented  general 
psychological  truths  to  teachers,^^  but  upon  the  certainty  and 
persistency  of  relationships  which  make  application  most 
probable.  Adaptation  in  the  sense  of  risking  a  modified 
sequence  for  a  partially  identical  stimulus  properly  belongs 
to  the  discussion  of  analysis  and  synthesis  as  conditions  to 
general  discipline. 


f^ 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  93 

7.  The  Fifth  Condition  to  General  Discipline,  Sufficient  Emo- 
tionalizing of  the  General  Stimulus  to  Make  It  a  Center 
of  Cumulative  Impression, 

The  fifth  condition  to  general  discipline  is,  that  wherever 
useful,  the  general  stimulus  should  be  made  an  emotional 
center  through  its  certain  association  with  a  few  illustrations 
exceptionally  strong  in  the  common  feeling  necessary  to  cu- 
mulative impression,  and  its  continual  association  with  others 
less  likely  to  be  remembered,  but  certain  to  re-enforce  the 
common  feeling. 

Professor  Bagley  fixes  upon  the  emotional  general  idea  as 
the  chief  condition  to  the  carrying  over  of  habits.  Professor 
Heck  has  pointed  out,  however,  that  there  are  many  habits 
that  carry  over  without  emotional  force  behind  them.^^ 
He  might  have  added  from  Mr.  Bain's  viewpoint,  that  there 
are  habits  with  whose  carr3dng  over  emotion  might  actually 
interfere — if  it  did  not  center  upon  the  stimulus  as  opposed 
to  various  ideas  associated  with  it.  A  development  of  inter- 
est in  the  subject-matter  of  mathematical  problems,  for 
example,  does  not  necessarily  aid  in  the  application  of  a 
general  principle  that  will  solve  them,  and  might,  where  it  is 
strong  and  immediate,  actually  distract  attention  from  the 
stimulus  whose  identification  results  in  the  mathematical 
judgment.  On  the  other  hand,  where  the  vague  feehng  of 
ease  or  pleasure  that  springs  from  the  ready  recollection  of  a 
consequence  by  its  stimulus  is  associated  with  the  stimulus, 
its  cumulative  re-enforcement  through  other  pleasurable 
impressions  undoubtedly  increases  Hkelihood  of  application. 

But  there  are  phases  of  life  in  which  emotion  plays  a  larger 
part,  where  the  application  of  a  habit  is  finally  conditioned 
by  the  association  of  cumulative  impression  with 
its  general  stimulus.     A  habit  whose  stimulus   determining 
is  concrete  and  specific  may  operate  without  the   condition 
added  incentive  of  emotion,  but  in  an  emotional   *°  *^® 
environment,  where  emotions  conflict,  the  general  opposing 
stimulus  that  is  most  strongly  re-enforced  by  habits. 


94  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

cumulative  impression  has  the  greatest  likeHhood  of  domi- 
nance. That  is,  emotion  is  not  so  much  a  condition  to  the 
carrying  over  of  a  habit,  as  to  its  operation  in  opposition  to 
conflicting  tendencies  or  habits. 

In  incidental  experience  all  sorts  of  habits  gain  this  re-en- 
forcement from  feeling  and  emotion.  Through  instruction 
only  these  relationships  that  are  most  generally  and  funda- 
mentally useful  can  become  dominant  through  the  force  of  a 
common  feeling  made  well-nigh  irresistible  through  cumula- 
tive impression.  There  must  be  a  permanent  association  of 
each  general  stimulus  with  the  fixed  ideals,  sentiments,  beliefs, 
and  impressions  which  give  the  individual  his  point  of  view 
and  collectively  constitute  public  opinion.  To  this  end,  the 
first  step  is  the  association  with  the  general  stimulus  through 
repetition  and  allusion  of  a  selected  few  of  the  incidents, 
experiences,  stories,  poems,  and  maxims  most  emotional 
through  their  form  of  expression,  that  will  result  in  the  com- 
mon feeling  helpful  to  right  application.  It  is  this  that  old 
David  Fordyce  had  in  mind  in  his  Dialogues  on  Education 
which,  though  written  almost  two  centuries  ago,  still  consti- 
tutes the  keenest  analysis  of  the  conditions  involved  in 
moral  education.  "I  think,"  he  asserts,  "it  will  be  universally 
allowed  that  the  associations  or  knots  of  ideas  (if  they  so 
call  them)  which  we  join  together  in  moral  subjects,  or  those 
things  which  constitute  our  complex  notion  of  happiness,  are 
the  cause  of  our  right  or  wrong  taste,  the  origin  of  motion 
to  our  passions,  and  consequently  to  our  conduct,  and  the 
spring  of  our  happiness  or  misery  in  life.  It  must,  therefore, 
be  an  affair  of  the  utmost  importance  in  education  to  settle 
just  associations  in  the  minds  of  youth,  and  to  break  and 
disunite  wrong  ones.  The  doing  this  aright  I  take  to  be  the 
grand  art  or  engine  of  moral  culture.  It  is  in  the  imagina- 
tion, as  I  observed  before,  or  in  that  middle  faculty  of  the 
mind  between  sense  and  reflection,  that  those  images  of 
beauty  and  good  are  formed  which  sway  our  resolutions  and 
guide  our  passions.  Truth,  unsupported  by  these  or  sepa- 
rate from  them,  makes  but  a  faint  impression  on  our  minds. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  95 

Thus,  let  a  miser  be  ever  so  much  convinced  that  money  is 
only  the  means  of  enjoyment,  not  the  end,  and  that  it  is  only 
valuable  as  far  as  it  is  useful  for  attaining  that  end;  I  say,  let 
him  be  convinced  of  this  as  much  as  of  the  truth  of  any  prop- 
osition in  Euclid;  still  the  images  of  his  bags  and  shining 
metal,  with  all  the  annexed  ideas  of  property,  enjoyment, 
security  against  want,  independence,  and  the  like  occur  which 
make  him  fancy  a  happiness  in  the  mere  possession,  separate 
and  quite  distinct  from  the  use.  In  vain  do  you  tell  him  that 
his  happiness  is  a  dream,  that  he  hugs  a  mere  phantom;  he 
blesses  himself  in  the  delusion,  and  thinks  your  taste  vicious, 
while  he  approves  and  acquiesces  in  his  own.  It  must,  there- 
fore, be  of  the  last  consequence  to  have  a  correct  imagination, 
or,  in  other  words,  to  unite  the  images  of  beauty  and  good 
with  our  perceptions  of  truth  and  nature.  "^^ 

The  first  step  toward  making  useful  relationships  emotion- 
ally dominant  is  the  sure  association  with  their  stimulus  of  a 
fixed  nucleus  of  these  "images  of  beauty  and  Literature 
good,"  highly  emotional  in  their  form  of  expres-      and  the 

sion,  which  will  tend  to  "sway  our  resolutions      ?/^®  ^*^. 

,        .  ,  .         ,1     T     .     1  ^        ^'  th©  chief 

and  guide  our  passions.       It  is  here  that  litera-      means  to 

ture  and  the  fine  arts  perform  their  noblest  ser-  emotional 
vice.  As  the  old  Greek  gained  through  Homer  his  ^^^' 
ideals  of  citizenship,  his  standard  of  morality,  and  his  rever- 
ence for  the  gods,  so  the  Christian  and  the  citizen  of  today 
can  best  gain  his  from  what  is  highest  and  best  in  the  spiritual 
inheritance  of  the  race  that  world  art  and  world  literature 
have  transmitted  in  the  emotional  form  most  likely  to  find 
individual  expression  in  right  living  and  heroic  achievement. 

The  second  step  toward  their  dominance  is  the  persistent 
association  with  the  fixed  emotional  center  of  a  constantly 
accumulating  mass  of  illustrations  which  in  their  aggregate 
will  re-enforce  the  common  feeling,  even  though  they  them- 
selves are  forgotten. 

The  relationships  which  are  directly  and  usefully  related 
to  life  alone  possess  the  stimuli  which  can  become  strong 
through  emotion.   Whether  found  in  science  or  in  experience, 


96  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

they,  rather  than  grammatical  constructions  and  logical 
formulas,  are  the  true  humanities.  Mathematics,  the 
languages,  and  the  sciences  can  be  emotionalized  in  their 
motives  and  incentives  only  when  their  relationships  are 
directly  useful  to  all  learners,  or  when  they  have  added  to 
them  the  ideals  of  the  specialist  who  makes  his  living  by 
teaching  them,  or  loves  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowledge. 
The  boy  or  girl  who  studies  them  only  for  the  sake  of  an 
ultimate  general  discipline  has  only  the  inspiration  of  work 
for  work's  sake,  which  in  the  young  is  an  ideal  to  be  devel- 
oped rather  than  one  that  can  be  put  to  the  sternest  strain. 

8.  The  Sixth  Condition  to  General  Discipline,  the  Association 
of  the  General  Stimulus,  through  Varying  Apperception, 
with  as  Many  Other  Ideas  and  Activities  as  Possible 

The  sixth  condition  to  general  discipline  is  association  of 
the  general  stimulus,  through  varying  apperception,  with  as 
many  other  ideas  and  activities  as  possible. 

It  is  through  varying  apperception  that  the  useful  relation- 
ship having  a  general  stimulus  is  provided  with  the  system  of 
intercommunication  by  which  it  can  pass  into  any  field  of 
experience  in  which  the  stimulus  can  operate.  It  is  through 
varying  apperception  that  the  stimulus  may  become  the 
center  for  a  useful  concentration  which  both  adds  to  its  com- 
prehension and  in  a  highly  cumulative  way  multiplies  again 
and  again  its  likelihood  of  recall.  With  this  latter  phase  of 
its  service,  which  through  the  growing  many-sidedness  of  its 
general  stimulus  makes  the  relationship  an  increasingly  domi- 
nating force,  cumulative  impression  co-operates.  Impres- 
sion, however,  if  it  is  to  be  cumulative,  must  constantly  re- 
enforce  a  common  feeling.  Varying  apperception  may  re- 
sult in  a  thousand  conflicting  feelings  which  may  or  may  not 
re-enforce  the  common  one,  but  which  attract  the  useful  re- 
lationship in  a  thousand  different  directions  and  make  it  more 
potent  as  it  turns  toward  each.  The  certain  association  of 
a  few  typical  applications  with  the  general  stimulus  furthers 
varying  apperception;  the  effort  to  discover  new  applications 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  97 

utilizes  it.  But  the  Herbartian  apperception  and  applica- 
tion must  unite  and  become  far  more  many-sided.  If  the 
general  stimulus  is  a  highly  essential  one,  instruction  should 
associate  it  not  only  with  as  many  useful  applications  as  pos- 
sible, but  with  all  possible  ideas  which  do  not  check  its  useful 
exercise  or  detract  from  the  common  feeling  which  tends  to 
emotionalize  it.  Such  many-sided  association  is  something 
more  than  a  condition  favorable  to  useful  general  discipline. 
It  is  a  means  to  culture  and,  as  var3dng  apperception  is  here 
limited  to  a  useful  general  stimulus,  it  is  a  means  to  useful 
culture. 

Unless  all  of  this  varying  apperception  is  to  sink  to  the 
level  of  impression,  it  must  be  kept  alive  by  adequate  exercise 
throughout  the  entire  course  of  instruction.  The  ^^^^  varying 
continuity  necessary  to  general  discipline  must  appercep- 
be  assured.  The  teaching  of  honesty,  as  has  ^°^f°l^^* 
been  said  before,  must  not  be  limited  to  the  third  stimulus  in 
grade  and  truthfulness  set  aside  for  the  sixth,  the  most 
Maxims,  stories,  examples,  personal  recollections,  ^^®  °^^^ 
biographical  incidents,  talks,  questions,  allusions,  poems, 
pictures,  and  songs — all  associated  with  the  general  stimulus — 
tend  to  ensure  the  widest  usefulness  to  a  relationship.  Al- 
though the  varying  apperception  which  results  from  them 
tends  to  generalization,  it  does  not  serve  the  same  purpose 
to  associate  them  with  merely  the  general  idea  of  honesty, 
because  in  the  minds  of  individuals  this  general  idea  may 
limit  itself  to  not  stealing.  Since  it  is  the  idea  of  not  taking 
or  retaining  what  is  not  morally  one's  own  that  must  become 
many-sided,  var3dng  apperception  must,  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, associate  other  ideas  and  activities  with  it,  in  place  of 
being  the  means  by  which  it  is  developed  through  their  as- 
sociation with  a  narrower  stimulus  which  they  gradually 
broaden.  However,  the  broader  and  more  many-sided  one's 
knowledge  and  experience,  even  in  the  mere  sense  of  in- 
formation, held  in  mind  by  accidental  or  at  least  individual 
and  varying  relationships,  the  broader  the  field  of  possible 
application.  If,  in  place  of  mere  information,  the  details 
7 


98  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

of  knowledge  and  experience  have  been  from  time  to  time 
or  even  at  some  one  time  presented  in  relationship  to  the 
general  stimulus,  the  probability  of  application  is  immensely 
increased. 

So  far  the  conditions  to  general  discipline  that  have  been 
discussed  bear  upon  the  general  stimulus  itself.  The  remain- 
ing conditions  have  to  do  with  the  environments  in  which 
the  general  discipline  is  known  to  be  most  useful.  Unlike 
-Pjjg  the  foregoing  ones,  therefore,  they  increase  the 

remaining      probability  of  the  carrying  over  of  a  relationship 

conditions     ^^^^  particular  fields  without  increasinsf  the  like- 

to  ceneral 

discipline       lihood  of  it  being  carried  over  into  all  fields. 

bear  upon  From  the  standpoint  of  the  field  of  application 
ments^n  ^^^^  consequently  apply  with  especial  force  to 
which  it  general  application  within  the  field  of  a  specific 
may  oper-  discipline,  such  as  a  particular  branch  of  mathe- 
matics or  a  natural  science.  They  may  embrace 
any  field,  no  matter  how  remote  from  the  one  in  which  the 
relationship  was  originally  developed,  but  are  little  likely 
to  aid  application  beyond  it.  From  the  standpoint  of  the 
relationship  to  be  carried  over,  they  especially  apply  to 
habits  for  which  the  most  general  possible  stimulus  would 
not  be  useful  and  yet  which  have  no  alternative  between  it 
and  various  specific  stimuli.  Among  such  habits  the  so- 
called  formal  relationships  are  conspicuous — industry,  obser- 
vation, perseverance,  and  even  analysis  and  synthesis. 
Relationships  whose  stimuli  can  be  made  as  relatively  general 
as  may  be  useful  are  especially  helped  by  the  conditions 
already  discussed. 


9.  The  Seventh  Condition  to  General  Discipline^  Certain  Asso- 
ciation with  Each  General  Stimulus  of  the  Knowledge 
Necessary  to  Its  Identification  and  Application  in  the 
Most  Useful  of  Its  Concrete  Forms 

The  seventh  condition  to  general  discipline  is  certain  asso- 
ciation with  each  general  stimulus  of  the  knowledge  necessary 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  99 

to  its  identification,  and  application  in  the  most  useful  of  its 
varying  concrete  forms. 

Inference  is  the  connecting  link  between  many-sidedness 
and  general  discipline.  Some  detail  of  an  idea  or  an  expres- 
sion suggests  a  general  stimulus  in  part  or  as  a  whole.  While 
many-sided  knowledge  may  exist  without  leading  through 
inference,  analysis,  and  synthesis  to  application,  general  ap- 
plication can  not  exist  without  it.  Each  without  the  other  is 
relatively  useless.  The  usefulness  of  knowledge  is  restricted 
to  incidental  and  individual  "thinking";  the  usefulness  of 
the  general  stimulus,  to  instances  in  which  it  has  been  ade- 
quately applied  in  some  concrete  form.  If  to  interest  in  the 
application  of  a  general  stimulus  isjadded  its  permanent 
association  with  certain  fields  of ''knowledge,  application 
within  these  fields  is  highly  probable.  The  habitual  seeking 
of  instances  in  every  possible  field  still  further  increases 
the  likelihood  of  its  being  carried  over. 

But  no  interest,  or  habit  of  seeking  out  similarities,  or 
natural  "sagacity"  can  bring  about  identification  of  a  stimu- 
lus which  is  disguised  by  unfamiliar  terminology  or  experience, 
or  application  which  requires  knowledge  as  yet  unacquired. 
The  first  difficulty  that  a  child  has  with  problem  work  in 
school  is  that  he  does  not  know  whether  to  add  or  subtract, 
because  he  has  not  associated  the  idea  of  more  or  less  with 
such  common  terms  as  buy,  sell,  lose,  find,  give,  spend,  and  so 
on.  Such  a  series  of  connecting  links  as  multiplicand,  hun- 
dreds, base,  and  cost,  between  the  general  stimulus  and  each 
of  its  highly  useful  concrete  forms,  must  be  certainly  retained 
or  the  habits  connected  with  the  latter  are  no  longer  applica- 
tions at  all.  Such  terms  as  suffrage,  ballot,  Australian  sys- 
tem, polls,  and  voter's  assistant,  together  with  knowledge  of 
facts  called  for  in  registration  and  qualifications  required  by 
particular  offices,  and  the  fundamental  issues  of  a  particular 
campaign,  are  necessary  before  one  can  apply  the  habit  of 
casting  an  intelligent  and  honest  vote.  It  is  the  fact  that 
there  can  be  no  analysis  without  knowledge  of  details  that 
makes  the  habit  of  analysis  and  synthesis,  soon  to  be  discussed. 


lOO  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

SO  specific  a  thing.  It  has  to  be  formed  anew  with  each  new 
field  of  appHcation,  and  is  conditioned  by  the  detailed  knowl- 
edge possessed  in  each  field. 

The  vocabulary  and  the  knowledge  essential  to  identifica- 
tion and  application  in  the  most  useful  instances  must  be 
certainly  mastered,  and  no  opportunity  must  be  lost  to  famil- 
iarize even  partially  and  temporarily  the  mass  of  individuals 
with  the  terminology  and  information  necessary  to  the  most 
extensive  application  that  is  useful.  It  will  not  be  fully 
mastered  in  formal  instruction,  but  having  once  been  in 
consciousness  will  either  remain  as  partial  concepts  that 
can  be  made  more  adequate,  or  forgotten  facts  that  may  be 
at  least  vaguely  recognized  and  more  readily  retained  if 
they  are  re-presented. 

Those  certainly  retained  constitute  a  special  phase  of 
specific  discipline  and  of  the  essential  content  as  distinct  from 
the  information,  which  is  the  basis  for  varying  apperception 
and  mere  remembrance.  The  others  must  be  included  among 
the  useful  relationships  in  which  all  "optional"  knowledge 
and  experience  are  to  be  presented,  even  though  through  lack 
of  repetition  necessary  to  make  such  relationships  permanent 
they  will  be  individually  and  variously  apperceived  or  re- 
tained. 

Within  the  academic  subject,  in  particular  in  the  abstract 

subject,  however,  the  limit  to  the  amount  of  knowledge  that 

The  limited    should  be  associated  with  the  general  stimulus 

amount  of     lies  in  interference  with  the  repetition  necessary 

concrete        ^q  ^^ie  Certainty  of  essential  habits.     Where,  as 

knowleQce 

mathemat-    ^  the  case  of  arithmetic,  for  example,  the  stimulus 

ically  use-  to  application  is  so  general  that  its  exercise  results 
"  *  from  the  occasional  necessities  of  every-day  life 

rather  than  from  the  identification  of  a  stimulus  which  is  ever 
present,  the  mastery  of  all  sorts  of  complex  subject-matter 
remote  from  the  life  of  the  pupil  adds  unnecessary  difiiculties 
to  a  task  difficult  enough  in  itself.  The  so-called  "new  arith- 
metic" of  the  Herbartians,  with  its  applications  to  the  details 
of  technical  and  specialized  occupations  unfamiliar  to  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DKMOCTlACY  JCJ 

general  student,  closely  approaches  this  limit,  if  it  has  not 
left  it  behind. 

In  the  case  of  observation  and  analysis,  knowledge  of  details 
is  more  obviously  essential.  The  observer  trained  systemati- 
cally to  note  the  details  of  chemistry  and  of  physics  may 
attempt  to  observe  with  equal  care  in  botany,  but  is 
blind  to  much  that  the  expert  botanist  can  see.  It  was 
not  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  habit  of  observation  that 
Agassiz  made  a  new  student  work  for  several  weeks  on 
one  dead  fish. 

ID.  The  Eighth  Condition  to  General  Discipline,  the  Habit  of 
Analysis  in  Each  Essential  Field  of  Application,  To- 
gether  with  the  Habit  of  Analysis  and  Synthesis  on  the 
Recognition  of  Any  Fart  of  a  General  Stimulus,  with  a 
View  to  Its  Identification  as  a  Whole, 

The  eighth  condition  to  general  discipline  is  the  formation 
of  the  habit  of  analysis  in  each  of  the  fields  in  which  it  is  most 
essential  that  a  general  stimulus  should  be  identified,  and  on 
the  recognition  of  any  part  of  a  familiar  stimulus  in  any  field, 
the  habit  of  analysis  and  synthesis  with  a  view  to  the  identi- 
fication of  the  stimulus  as  a  whole. 

I  use  the  terms  "analysis''  and  "synthesis"  with  due  regard 
for  Professor  Dewey's  distinction  between  an  analysis  and 
synthesis  purely  mechanical  and  quantitative,  and  an  anal- 
ysis which  means  "selective  emphasis,"  and  a  synthesis  which 
means  "the  interpretation  of  what  is  selected.  "^^ 

The  habit  of  analysis  necessary  to  useful  general  discipline 
is  something  less  than  the  habit  of  observation;  and  the  habit 
of  synthesis,  something  more.  Analysis  does  not  require  the 
exhaustive  and  systematic  noting  of  details  peculiar  to  all 
observation,  useful  for  retention  and  complete  recall,  but 
merely  the  noting  of  details  until  some  stimulus  or  part  of  a 
possible  stimulus  appears.  Observation,  unlike  synthesis, 
does  not  require  the  constant  combination  and  recombina- 
tion of  the  identified  and  hence  suggestive  part  with  other 


10?.  CULTUR]E  J>ISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

details  until  the  stimulus  as  a  whole  is  identified.  As  pointed 
out  by  Alexander  Bain,  drawing  results  in  an  observation 
which,  having  reproduction  for  its  aim,  is  little  likely  to  be 
synthetic.  The  analysis  worth  while  from  the  standpoint  of 
general  discipline  is  what  Dr.  Adams  shows  to  be  true  of  the 
''observation''  of  Sherlock  Holmes — not  observation  in  the 
usual  sense  at  all,  but  analysis  followed  by  synthesis  and 
reassociation.^2 

Sometimes  the  possibility  of  application  in  a  seemingly 
remote  environment  flashes  upon  a  thinker  through  the  selec- 
^    ,    .  tion  and  identification  of  some  detail  that  forms 

commonly  P^^^  ^^  ^^^  Stimulus.  That  is,  what  Professor 
due  to  tem-  James  used  to  call  "sagacity"  comes  into  play. 
porary  in-  More  frequently  one  is  confronted  with  a  propo- 
the  habit  of  sition  or  situation  as  a  whole  which  gives  some 
analyzing  hint  as  to  the  sort  of  stimulus  that  should  be 
lar^fieldT"  identified — an  original  problem  in  geometry  where 
analysis  will  separate  out  equal  lines  and  angles, 
or  a  new  city  with  possible  factors  that  in  combination  form 
the  stimulus  for  the  judgment  "manufacturing  center." 
From  the  standpoint  of  sagacity,  on  the  other  hand,  applica- 
tion has  no  limit.  In  an  environment  not  formerly  associa- 
ted with  it,  a  flash  of  insight  suggests  the  usual  stimulus  to 
some  habit  or  relationship  that  may  be  brought  into  play. 
In  either  case,  analysis  and  synthesis  must  follow.  But  the 
cue  to  purposeful  analysis  is  usually  the  presence  of  a  situa- 
tion or  proposition  which  presents  some  temporary  interest  or 
which  one  has  formed  the  habit  of  analyzing.  That  is, 
general  discipline  will  not  only  fail  to  operate  where  one  is 
ignorant  of  details,  but  in  combinations  of  familiar  details  to 
which  one  has  not  formed  the  habit  of  carrying  over  relation- 
ships, or  in  which  one  is  not  otherwise  interested.  Here  it  is 
plain,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  many-sidedness  of  interest 
to  which  apperception  gives  rise  is  a  condition  to  the  incidental 
operation  of  general  discipline,  and  on  the  other,  that  in  place 
of  the  impossible  habit  of  analyzing  every  environment  with 
which  one  is  confronted,  must  be  substituted  the  habits  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  103 

analyzing  the  particular  situations  to  which  the  relationships 
made  certain  through  direct  preparation  for  life  must  be  ap- 
plied. 

Where  the  stimulus  is  not  composite,  analysis  is  all  that  is 
necessary  for  its  identification.  If  the  habit  has  been  cer- 
tainly formed,  the  identification  of  its  stimulus  Recognition 
will  at  once  result  in  its  operation,  but  where  the  of  parts  of  a 
stimulus  is  composite,  recognition  of  its  several  gj^^^j^g® 
parts  by  no  means  carries  with  it  its  identifica-  must  be 
tion  as  a  whole.  Two  sides  of  one  triangle  may  be  followed  by 
recognized  as  equal  to  two  sides  of  another,  and  synthesis, 
the  included  angle  of  the  one  may  be  recognized  as  equal  to 
that  of  the  other  without  sides  and  angles  i^being  combined 
into  the  famiHar  stimulus  "two  sides  and  the  included  angle." 
Here,  again,  there  can  be  no  habit  of  synthesizing  all  details, 
but  rather  the  habit  of  combining  and  recombining  details 
in  fields  of  knowledge  and  experience  where  the  habits  to  be 
applied  may  be  expected  to  usefully  operate.  Information 
or  experience  in  most  minds  embraces  far  too  many  details 
for  their  occurrence  to  be  accepted  as  a  general  stimulus  to 
either  analysis  or  synthesis.  Indeed,  except  in  the  case  of  a 
monomaniac,  varying  interest  and  attention  would  make 
this  impossible.  Conditioned,  as  general  discipline  is,  by 
habits  whose  stimuli  cannot  be  general,  the  only  certainty  of 
its  useful  operation  is  in  making  analysis  and  S3mthesis 
habitual  in  the  specific  field  to  which  general  discipline  is  to 
carry  other  habits. 

In  the  case  of  the  more  concrete  stimulus,  identification 
may  be  direct,  or  partial  identification  may  precede  analysis 
and  suggest  it.  The  identification  of  a  more  abstract 
stimulus  in  concrete  form,  however,  not  only  requires  analysis, 
but  the  analysis  is  itself  conditioned  by  knowledge  of  the 
concrete  details  of  which  the  stimulus  is  a  part,  or  of  the  spe- 
cific response  for  which  it  is  the  signal.  For  example,  to 
solve  a  problem  through  the  fundamental  principles  of  per- 
centage the  habits  of  synthesis  and  analysis  must  be  associ- 
ated with  any  problem  in  which  hundredths  figure.    Th^ 


I04  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

readily  apparent  presence  of  the  rate  per  cent,  is  itself  the 
signal  for  analysis,  with  a  view  to  identifying  the  stimulus  of 
which  it  is  the  whole  or  a  part.  If  the  rate  per  cent,  itself 
is  to  be  determined,  it  in  itself  at  once  becomes  the  whole 
stimulus  to  the  division  of  the  percentage  by  the  base.  If 
not,  its  recognition  as  a  partial  stimulus  should  become  the 
first  step  in  an  analysis  which  finally  supplies  cost  or  gain, 
amount  purchased  or  commission,  etc.,  followed  by  a  syn- 
thesis which  completes  the  stimulus  as  per  cent,  and  base,  per 
cent,  and  percentage,  one  plus  the  per  cent,  and  the  "amount" 
or  one  less  the  per  cent,  and  the  "difference."  The  failure  of 
pupils  to  identify  the  stimulus  as  a  whole  after  partially 
recognizing  it  in  the  per  cent,  may  be  due  to  the  absence  of 
the  habit  of  analysis,  but  more  frequently  to  the  absence  of 
the  habit  of  synthesis  or  to  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  terms 
which  denote  the  whole  number  of  hundreds  on  which  the 
per  cent,  is  taken  and  the  number  resulting  from  the  taking 
of  the  per  cent.  If  pupils  have  never  been  taught  the  prin- 
ciples of  percentage  at  all,  and  are  wholly  dependent  upon 
the  more  abstract  stimulus  of  multiplicand  and  multiplier, 
multiplier  and  product,  or  product  and  multiplicand,  not  only 
must  analysis  and  synthesis  become  associated  with  any 
The  most  problem  involving  times  more  or  division  into 
general  equal  parts,  but  further  and  more  difficult  analy- 
stimulus  ^^^  ^^^  synthesis  become  necessary  without  a 
most  use-  knowledge  of  details  becoming  any  less  essential. 
ful  poten-  The  most  general  stimulus  that  is  useful  is  always 
the  con^  ^^^  most  useful,  and  in  number  the  most  abstract 
Crete  more  stimulus  is  always  potentially  the  most  useful, 
certain.  because  a  numerical  stimulus  cannot  become  too 
general.  But  the  more  concrete  stimulus  is  the  more  certain. 
To  identify  cost  and  rate  of  gain  or  rate  of  commission  and 
commission  requires  less  complex  analysis  than  to  identify 
multiplicand  and  multiplier  or  multiplier  and  product,  and 
ensures  readier  judgment  than  when  cost  and  rate  of  gain 
have  to  suggest  base  and  rate,  and  base  and  rate,  multipli-. 
cand  and  multiplier,  before  the  judgment  "multiply"  results,  * 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  105 

This  is  one  reason  why  each  general  stimulus  must  be 
certainly  and  permanently  associated  with  a  few  of  its  most 
useful  and  suggestive  applications.  Thus  associated,  how- 
ever, they  are  not  merely  specific  and,  hence,  certain  habits, 
but  serve  to  make  easier  recognition  of  the  general  stimulus  in 
similar  concrete  forms. 

Academic  analysis  and  synthesis  are  readily  associated  with 
the  fields  in  which  they  are  academically  useful:  mathemat- 
ical problems,  flowers,  forms  of  life,  minerals,  chemical  sub- 
stances, movements,  and  forces.  That  is,  the  analysis 
and  synthesis  necessary  to  general  discipline  within  a  so-called 
"specific  discipline"  can  be  readily  made  habitual.  This  is  in 
part  true  of  the  "specific  discipline"  necessary  to  direct  prep- 
aration for  life,  which  may  or  may  not  include  the  academic 
disciplines.  The  analysis  and  synthesis  necessary  to  morals, 
health,  industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  good  ^^^  ^.^^^^ 
citizenship,  and  right  avocation  must  be  associ-   preparation 

ated  with  particular  phases  of  diet,  respiration,   ensures  an- 

1     ,  .  ..1  J.'  ^  alysis  and 

clothmg,  particular  occupation,  government,  or   synthesis 

public  welfare.  From  the  standpoint  of  general  outside  the 
discipline,  the  fundamental  difference  between  the  ^^^^^^^ 
habits  of  analysis  and  synthesis  due  to  specific 
academic  discipline  and  those  due  to  equally  systematic  and 
specific  preparation  for  some  phase  of  life,  is  that  the  mastery 
of  the  academic  discipline  does  not  demand  that  they  shall 
be  carried  over  into  life  in  general  outside  the  fields  in  which 
they  can  be  certainly  associated,  and  that  the  direct  prep- 
aration for  life  does.  It  is  not  necessary  to  a  pure  science 
that  it  shall  be  applied  at  all. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  habit  of  analysis  and  synthesis 
necessary  to  carrying  over  as  a  means  to  direct  preparation  is 
identical  with  the  habit  necessary  to  such  general  analysis  and 
synthesis  as  may  be  useful — that  is,  the  certain  association 
with  the  identification  of  any  detail  as  part  of  a  general 
stimulus,  of  analysis  and  synthesis  with  a  view  to  the  identi- 
fication of  the  stimulus  as  a  whole.  While  analysis  and  syn- 
thesis in  the  academic  subject,  and  more  especially  in  the 


lo6  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

formal  discipline,  can  be  thus  suggested  by  the  partial  identi- 
fication of  some  stimulus,  all  that  academic  proficiency  re- 
quires is  that  they  shall  be  suggested,  as  already  pointed  out, 
by  the  presence  of  the  particular  t3^e  of  material  ordinarily 
associated  with  them.  Language  will  suggest  the  analysis 
necessary  to  grammatical  or  rhetorical  form.  Matter  of  a 
particular  kind  will  suggest  the  analysis  and  synthesis  of 
botany,  zoology,  or  geology;  and  particular  manifestations  of 
matter,  that  of  chemistry  or  physics.  The  object  of  the 
academic  study  is  not  to  make  as  independent  and  probable 
as  possible  the  carrying  over  of  its  relationships  into  every 
useful  field,  but  to  make  the  learner  capable  of  applying  them 
whenever  he  is  called  upon  to  do  so.  That  is,  outside  of  the 
academic  subject  matter  itself,  the  aim  is  not  self-activity 
and  a  continual  analysis  and  synthesis  on  the  recognition  of 
any  part  of  the  usual  stimulus,  but  the  ability  to  analyze  and 
synthesize  if  application  is  demanded.  While  an  industrial 
specialist  or  a  specialist  in  pure  science  may  seek  new  applica- 
tions, the  general  student  trained  in  chemistry,  for  example, 
either  brings  it  to  bear  in  explanation  of  phenomena  with 
which  it  has  already  been  associated,  or  in  the  solution  of  some 
problem  with  which  he  has  actually  been  confronted,  obvi- 
ously chemical  in  its  explanation. 

Now,  although  the  habits  of  analysis  and  synthesis  neces- 
sary to  morality,  health,  industrial  efficiency,  social  service, 
good  citizenship,  and  even  right  avocation  are  in  part  like 
those  involved  in  academic  study  suggested  by  specific  kinds 
of  experience,  they  most  frequently  operate  not  only  when  the 
specific  phase  of  experience  which  suggests  them  is  lacking,  but 
when  the  specific  experience -presented  is  strongly  suggestive 
of  other  groups  and  systems  of  thought  which  tend  to  exclude 
them.  For  example,  the  failure  of  a  street  railway  conductor 
to  collect  a  fare  may  suggest  official  carelessness  and  con- 
sequently failure  to  call  out  streets,  lack  of  courtesy  and  so  on 
— a  sufficiently  potent  group  of  ideas  to  distract  attention 
from  the  passenger's  personal  resppnsibility  for  payment, 
unless  the  very  idea  of  fare  in  pairt,  at  least,  suggests  it, 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  107 

and  raises  the  question  of  honesty.  If  it  does,  analysis 
and  synthesis  must  at  once  determine  the  presence  or 
absence  of  the  general  stimulus  to  the  judgment  honest 
or  dishonest. 

The  various  specific  phases  of  direct  preparation  for  life 
differ  widely  in  the  extent  to  which  they  can,  like  the  aca- 
demic subjects,  depend  upon  specific  forms  of  experience  to 
suggest  analysis  and  synthesis.  More  than  this,  it  is  possible 
to  ensure  the  carrying  over  of  habits  of  analysis  and  synthesis 
from  the  academic  subjects.  But  with  the  former  it  is  essen- 
tial; with  the  latter,  artificial.  Just  as  the  formal  subjects, 
through  their  essential  certainty  and  system,  favor  specific 
discipline,  so  do  the  systems  of  relationship  made  equally 
certain  in  their  furtherance  of  every-day  life,  naturally  favor 
general  discipline. 

A   minor   distinction   unfavorable   to   the   study   of  the 
abstract  subjects  as  a  means  to  general  discipline  lies  in 
the   fact   that   the   specific  kind   of   experience 
which  suggests  their  habits  of  analysis  and  syn-  requires 
thesis  is  for  the  most  part  concrete  and  tan-  analysis 
gible — ^word  forms,  symbols,  lines    and   angles,  ^nassisted 
^,  .  1.11  i-  1  -1      ^y  concrete 

objects  and  other  phenomena  of  sense,   while  details  pres- 

both  life  and  direct  preparation  for  it  require  entin 

•  r  1      •  1  **abstract" 

a  far  greater  proportion  of  analysis  and  syn-  g^^jgcts. 
thesis  of  ideas  unassisted  by  things. 

Finally,  although  in  both  the  formal  subjects  and  direct 
preparation  for  life,  the  association  of  cumulative  impression 
with  a  general  stimulus,  its  apperception  as  a  center  for 
concentration,  its  certain  association  with  various  typical 
fields  and  frequent  association  with  favorable  fields  outside 
its  own,  and  frequent  effort  to  discover  new  applications,  may 
point  the  way  to  analysis  and  synthesis  where  they  will  be 
most  useful;  they  are  naturally  developed  in  the  abstract  or 
even  the  academic  subject  only  through  specialization,  while 
they  are  as  essential  to  direct  preparation  for  life  as  is 
specific  discipline  itself. 

In  both  academic  work  and  that  directly  preparatory  to 


lo8  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

life,  innate  interests,  varying  interests,  and  the  interest  that 
Varying  in-  2,rises  from  even  temporary  concentration  should 
terest  a  be  utilized  as  a  favorable  condition  for  analytical 
^^^^d^^^t  ^^^  synthetical  work  with  a  view  to  general 
analysis  discipline.  The  fact  that  analysis,  like  observa- 
and  syn-  tion,  when  effectively  exercised  in  one  field,  is  for 
thesis.  ^Yie  time  being  at  least  less  probable  in  any  other, 

merely  emphasizes  the  importance  of  temporary  or  changing 
interests  and  concentrations.  This  is  why  thesis  work,  involv- 
ing weeks  of  research,  possesses  such  marked  advantages  over 
frequent  and  unimpressive  papers  which  are  necessarily  mere 
compilations  or  transpositions,  valuable  mainly  from  the 
standpoint  of  written  repetitions  of  facts  and  drill  in  form  of 
expression. 

The  habit  of  analysis  and  synthesis  certainly  associated 
with  the  identification  of  any  part  of  a  general  stimulus  is  the 
best  antidote  for  '^too  hasty  interference"  and  "jum^ping  at 
conclusions."  Wherever  there  is  opportunity  for  it,  each 
part  of  the  stimulus  as  a  whole  must  be  identified  before  the 
sequence  or  the  habit  results.  The  very  "hastiness"  and  the 
tendency  to  "jump"  are  invaluable  if  they  lead  toward  the 
stimulus  as  a  whole  instead  of  skipping  over  to  its  con- 
sequences. 

Where  certain  parts  of  the  familiar  general  stimulus  are 
found  to  be  missing,  drill  in  adaptation  should  be  substituted 
Value  of  the  ^^^  application.  Here,  adaptation,  in  place  of 
drill  in  being    dependent    upon    a    sufficiently    general 

adaptation  stimulus,  takes  the  form  of  noting  whether  or  not 
scientific  the  variation  in  the  stimulus  does  or  does  not 
experimen-  seriously  modify  the  ascertained  result,  or  of 
tation.  actually  attempting  variation  in  the  stimulus  with 

a  view  to  a  desirable  modification  of  the  result.  All  experi- 
mental sciences  involve  adaptation  as  certainly  as  they  ensure 
application.  The  drill  necessary  to  the  formation  of  this 
habit,  however,  not  only  does  not  demand  the  mastery  of 
any  one  of  them  as  a  whole,  but  the  modified  stimulus  or  result 
which  is  a  signal  for  its  operation  will  be  associated  with  more 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  109 

fields  of  experience,  and  general  application  made  more  prob- 
able, if  the  habit  is  formed  through  experimentation  with 
material  selected  from  a  variety  of  sciences. 

On  the  contrary,  mathematics  as  an  exact  science  tends  to 
make  the  individual  so  certain  of  his  judgment  in  the  absence 

of  the  modifying  conditions  which  its  abstract-   _.  ^- 

,..  1  1       •!        'r     J.'  r         Matnemat- 

ness  elimmates,  that  on  the  identmcation  ot  a  ics  in  itself 

familiar  stimulus  as  a  whole  the  usual  judgment  ill-suited  to 
is  likely  to  follow  with  an  inexorability  and  self-  ^abit^cS  *^^ 
confidence  which  leave  no  room  for  adaptation,  adaptation  ! 
After  all,  human  nature  is  such  that  the  easiest  or  truth- 
habit  to  carry  over  from  mathematics  to  life  in 
general  is  a  strongly  increased  confidence  in  the  infallibility 
of  one's  own  conclusions.  The  common  impression  that,  some- 
how or  other  on  account  of  its  exactness,  the  study  of  mathe- 
matics tends  to  make  one  more  truthful,  fails  to  take  this 
tendency  into  account.  If  exactness  results  in  a  narrowmind- 
edness  that  focuses  attention  on  the  correctness  of  small  de- 
tails of  life,  without  the  due  sense  of  proportion  and  the 
broader  perspective  of  which  modifying  conditions  form  a 
part,  the  resulting  truth  is  partial  and  misleading.  It  is 
well  to  remember  that  the  exact  science  which  has  made  the 
most  helpful  contribution  to  modern  logic  is  in  itself  alone 
inadequate  not  only  as  a  general  discipline  for  reasons  al- 
ready discussed,  but  from  the  standpoint  of  adaptation  and  of 
truthfulness.  Life  is  not  abstract.  Its  conclusions  are  con-  • 
tinually  being  modified  by  its  many-sidedness,  and  its  exact 
statements,  though  true  in  themselves,  are  often  the  farthest 
swing  of  the  pendulum  from  whole  truths. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  COMPARATIVE  USELESSNESS  OF  THE  OLD  "DISCIPLIN- 
ARY" OR  "formal''  SUBJECTS  TO  ALL  PHASES  OF 
FORMAL    SELF-ACTIVITY    EXCEPT    SPECIFIC    DISCIPLINE 

The  necessity  for  this  complex  analysis  of  educational  self- 
activity  now  stands  revealed.  A  discipline  no  longer  formal 
in  the  traditional  sense  cannot  be  the  sole  alternative  and 
complement  of  knowledge  and  culture.  In  the  new  sense  of 
general  discipline,  it  is  only  one  among  several  forms  of  educa- 
tional or  formal  self-activity,  all  of  which  are  interrelated  and 
interdependent.  Apperception  also  is  too  vague  a  term  to 
displace  it,  even  when  used  in  as  inclusive  a  sense  as  formal 
discipline  itself.  Varying  apperception  is  the  complement  of 
specific  discipline,  and  with  it  and  cumulative  impression  a 
necessary  condition  to  general  discipline.  Mere  remembrance 
is  the  initial  step  by  which  experience  that  does  not  fade  away 
into  impression  becomes  specific  discipline  and  varying  ap- 
perception. 

I.  The  Usefulness  of  an  Idea  or  Activity  Dependent  Upon  the 
Relationships  in  Which  It  Is  Retained  and  Recalled 
From  the  standpoint  of  instruction,  knowledge  depends  for 
its  usefulness  solely  upon  the  relationships  in  which  it  is 
mastered.  In  forgotten  relationships  it  gives  rise  to  impression 
which  as  common  feeling  centered  upon  a  useful  idea  becomes 
cumulative  in  its  force  and  creates  an  emotional  center.  In 
partial  relationships,  it  results  in  mere  remembrance  which 
holds  an  idea  in  mind,  usually  in  incidental  associations 
varying  with  individuals,  until  its  relationships  are  multiplied 
by  varying  apperception  or  made  certain  by  specific  discipline. 
In  many-sided  relationships  it  produces  varying  apperception 
through  which  it  may  be  carried  over  to  any  other  directly  or 

110 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  ill 

indirectly  related  ideas,  and  they  concentrated  upon  it. 
In  definite  and  certain  relationships,  it  leads  to  specific  disci- 
pline, on  which  the  permanence  of  all  fixed  relationships,  the 
usefulness  of  varying  apperception,  and  the  possibility  and 
usefulness  of  general  discipline  depend.  Even  here  it  emerges 
from  information  only  as  its  relationships  result  in  system. 
In  definite  and  specific  relationships  having  a  general  stimulus ,  it 
furthers  general  discipline,  the  only  means  by  which  the  cer- 
tainly useful  can  be  applied  in  all  possible  fields  of  experience. 

2.  The  Usefulness  of  Relationships  Can  Be  Measured  Only 
Through  Degree  of  Inherent  Sensation  or  Emotion  that 
is  Useful,  the  Number  of  Relationships  in  Which  They 
are  Potentially  Useful,  and  the  Number  of  Their  Useful 
Recurrences  in  Every-day  Life 
Now  if  by  usefulness  is  meant  either  direct  or  indirect  fur- 
therance of  the  educational  aim,  the  usefulness  of  a  single 
relationship  or  a  system  of  relationships,  whether  of  knowl- 
edge or  activities,  can  be  measured  only  through  the  degree 
of  useful  sensation  or  feeling  inherent  in  it,  the  number  of 
relationships  in  which  it  is  potentially  useful,  and  the  fre- 
quency of  its  recurrence  in  such  relationships  in  every-day  life. 
In  cumulative  impression  the  degree  of  inherent  sensation  or 
feeling  is  determining;  in  mere  remembrance  and  varying 
apperception,  possible  many-sidedness  of  relationship  and  fre- 
quency of  recurrence;  in  general  discipline,  all  three.  Here 
interest,  many-sidedness,  and  frequency  of  recurrence  not  only 
unite  to  increase  the  probability  of  usefulness,  but  through 
greater  impressiveness  and  likelihood  of  repetition  themselves 
tend  to  ensure  certainty.  Either  for  a  single  relationship  or 
a  system  of  relationships,  whether  regarded  as  a  whole  or  as 
an  aggregate  of  the  parts  and  relationships  which  comprise 
it,  the  test  is  the  same.  That  is,  a  specific  system  of  knowl- 
edge and  activities  can  be  evaluated  in  part  and  as  a  whole 
through  the  aggregate  worth  of  component  single  relation- 
ships, measured  by  sensational  or  emotional  appeal,  many- 
sidedness,  and  recurrence. 


112  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

3.  Since  the  Relationships  Directly  Useful  in  Highest  Degree 
Are  Capable  0}  Being  Indirectly  Useful  in  the  Highest 
Degree,  the  General  Course  of  Study  Must  Emphasize 
Subjects  Containing  a  High  Proportion  of  Directly  Useful 
Material 

Holding  in  mind  the  fundamental  distinction,  ignored  by 
Mr.  Spencer  but  pointed  out  by  W.  H.  Payne  and  others 
among  his  critics,  between  what  is  useful  to  the  race  through 
the  specialist  and  what  is  directly  useful  to  all,  it  is  clear  that 
every  branch  of  human  knowledge  will  continue  to  figure  in 
the  course  of  study.  Most  have  subject-matter  directly  or 
indirectly  useful  to  all.  Some  contain  material  useful  only 
through  the  specialist.  But  general  education  will  exclude  all 
subjects  as  wholes  which  are  useful  to  all  as  wholes,  through 
their  disciplinary  value  alone.  More  than  this,  all  learners, 
including  the  specialist,  must  master,  on  the  one 
tratioiT'  hand,  the  subject-matter  directly  preparatory  to 
through  life,  and,  on  the  other,  that  which  is  essential  to 
special-  useful  general  discipline.  The  present  tendency 
inadequate  toward  a  paralleling  of  a  many-sided  course  of 
remedy  for  study  with  intensive  work  in  two  or  three  formal 
disciDUne^  subjects  required  in  common  of  all  might  be  peda- 
gogical, were  it  not  for  two  facts.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  formal  subjects  have  been  demonstrated  to  be  not 
only  unnecessary  to  general  discipline,  but  to  a  limited  extent 
disadvantageous  to  it.  On  the  other,  the  systematic  organi- 
zation of  material  with  a  view  to  direct  preparation  for  life 
has  just  as  certainly  been  demonstrated  to  involve  the  forma- 
tion of  all  habits  that  should  be  generally  applied,  and  to  be 
to  a  serious  extent  essential  to  the  general  application  of 
useful  habits  wherever  they  may  have  been  formed.  If  the 
truth  of  these  two  propositions  has  been  demonstrated,  the 
traditional  position  of  the  abstract  subjects  and  that  of  those 
more  directly  preparatory  to  life  must  be  reversed.  The 
abstract  subjects  must  become  the  electives,  and  the  subjects 
directly  preparatory  to  life  the  required  subjects.      As  re- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  II3 

gards  the  necessity  for  direct  preparation,  no  demonstration 
is  necessary.  As  regards  the  superior  efficiency  of  direct  in- 
struction as  a  means  to  the  indirect  furtherance  of  the  edu- 
cational aim  through  the  formal  phases  or  educational  forms 
of  self-activity,  recapitulation  cannot  but  be  convincing. 

4.  The  Study  of  the  Formal  Subjects  But  Little  Favorable  to 
Phases  of  Formal  Self -activity  Other  Than  Specific  Discipline 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  advantage  of  the  old  "formal 
subjects"  over  the  academic  branches  lies  in  the  fact  that  they 
are  formal  through  their  essential  organization  and  the 
method  inherent  in  their  organization.  Their  adequate  mas- 
tery compels  the  certain  and  systematic  specific  discipline 
which  in  other  subjects  is  far  more  largely  dependent  upon 
pedagogic  method  and  not  inherent  in  an  inevitable  organiza- 
tion of  their  subject  matter.  While  in  the  case  of  other  aca- 
demic subjects  the  same  certainty  and  system  are  possible 
through  pedagogic  method,  in  direct  preparation  for  life  it 
must  be  compelled.  Morality  and  religion,  health,  industrial 
efficiency,  and  citizenship  cannot  be  adequately  taught  un- 
less they  are  formally  taught  in  the  true  sense — ^with  each 
form  of  educational  self-activity  certainly  developed,  includ- 
ing a  more  certain  and  more  systematic  specific  discipline  than 
that  of  a  branch  of  mathematics  or  a  language.  At  this 
point,  however,  the  formal  subject  has  the  right  to  throw 
down  the  gauntlet  which  direct  preparation  can  only  theo- 
retically pick  up  until  the  necessary  organization  has  become 
actual. 

From  the  standpoint  of  general  discipline  and  all  other 
formal  phases  of  self-activity,  the  supremacy  of  mathematics 
and  the  languages  is  irretrievably  lost,  while  that  of  direct 
preparation  for  life  is  irresistibly  destined  to  become  more 
complete.  Cumulative  impression,  both  in  itself  and  as  a 
favorable  condition  to  general  discipline,  demands  subject 
matter  which  is  inherently  emotional  or  which  is  made  so 
through  its  form  of  expression.  This  involves,  in  place  of  the 
formal  subjects  or  in  addition  to  them,  the  utilization  through 

8 


114  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

direct  instruction  of  selections  both  from  emotional  experi- 
ence and  literature  and  art,  made  on  account  of  their  emo- 
tional expression  of  ideas  which  should  dominate  life  and 
character.  Artistic  expression  and  appreciation,  as  distinct 
from  emotional  sensibility  and  aesthetic  enjoyment,  are  from 
this  point  of  view  not  essential  to  the  mass  of  individuals,  and, 
indeed,  are  possible  in  any  high  degree  only  to  the  specialist 
— on  the  side  of  appreciation,  the  specialist  in  culture,  on  that 
of  expression,  the  specialist  in  art.  In  fact,  since  analysis 
and  discrimination  tend  to  lessen  emotion,  both  sensibility 
and  aesthetic  enjoyment  may  actually  be  lessened  through 
artistic  training. 

Mere  remembrance,  dependent  as  it  is  on  connection  with 
individual  experience,  like  the  varying  apperception  which 
it  conditions,  finds  little  encouragement  in  abstract  subject 
matter.  It  helps  more  in  the  mastery  of  the  abstract  subject 
matter  than  the  abstract  subject  matter  helps  in  developing 
it  in  every-day  life.  That  is,  any  idea,  no  matter  how  ab- 
stract, may  be  temporarily  held  in  mind  in  some  incidental 
or  even  ridiculous  association.  But  it  is  the  subject  matter 
full  of  vastly  more  concrete  details  than  can  be  certainly 
remembered  that  profits  most  from  mere  remembrance  and 
makes  the  most  useful  contribution  to  it. 

5.  The  Limited  Contribution  to  Formal  Self -activity  Resulting 

From  the  Elementary  Study  of  a  Foreign  Language 

Even  in  the  case  of  language,  it  is  only  in  the  general  sense 

of  the  partial  mastery  of  mere  words  in  the  vernacular  and 

Mere  re-       ^^t  through  grammatical  terminology  or  tech- 

membrance    nique  that  it  makes  its  fundamental  contribution 

and  vary-  ^^  vaeve  remembrance.  Both  mere  remembrance 
ing  apper-  ,  .  ,.  ,  -j    j 

ception  and  varying  apperception,  however,   are   aided 

furthered       by  the  mastery  of  a  foreign  language  in  the  in- 

use^olT^"^^  strumental    sense.     They    are    not    materially 

foreign  furthered  through  the  process  of  mastery,  except 

language.       {^  j-^g  added  associations  given  words  through 

etymology,  and  a  broadening  of  their  information  and  inter- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  115 

ests  through  the  translating  of  passages  that  could  have  been 
far  more  readily  acquired  in  the  vernacular.  The  increased 
many-sidedness  comes  through  the  mastery  of  a  language 
as  a  ready  means  of  gaining  knowledge  and  experience  not 
accessible  in  the  vernacular,  or  of  adding  to  that  which  is. 
Thomas  Arnold's  appeal  for  the  classics,  in  so  far  as  it  was  not 
disciplinary,  was  made  from  this  point  of  view:  ''Expell 
Greek  and  Latin  from  your  schools,  and  you  confine  the 
views  of  the  existing  generation  to  themselves  and  their 
immediate  predecessors.  Aristotle  and  Plato  and  Thucy- 
dides  and  Cicero  and  Tacitus  are  most  untruly  called  ancient 
writers.  They  are  virtually  our  own  countrymen  and  con- 
temporaries, but  have  the  advantage  which  is  enjoyed  by 
intelligent  travelers,  that  their  observation  has  been  exercised 
in  a  field  out  of  the  reach  of  common  men,  and  that  having 
thus  seen  in  a  manner  with  our  eyes,  what  we  cannot  see  for 
ourselves,  their  conclusions  are  such  as  bear  upon  our  own 
circumstances."^^  But  as  Alexander  Bain  pointed  out,  with 
the  exception  of  a  certain  aesthetic  quality  inherent  in  the 
form  of  a  language  as  distinct  from  the  thought  which  it 
expresses,  its  whole  benefit  from  this  instrumental  point  of 
view,  its  culture  and  its  knowledge,  can  be  acquired  through 
the  reading  of  what  others  have  translated.^  Since,  as 
President  HalFs  investigations  have  helped  in-  guch  ready 
dicate,  the  mass  of  students  in  high  school  and  use  involves 
in  college  fail  to  attain  either  the  degree  or  the  continuous 
stage  of  advancement  at  which  a  language  be-  ^^  ^' 
comes  instrumental,  it  follows  that  either  more  thorough 
instruction  or  more  time  must  be  given  to  those  whose  mas- 
tery is  attempted.  This,  as  in  the  case  of  discipline,  justi- 
fies concentration,  but,  like  it,  not  a  concentration  required 
in  common  of  all  students.  The  knowledge,  the  culture,  and 
the  experience  that  cannot  be  obtained  through  the  vernacu- 
lar are  in  America  necessary  only  to  the  specialist.  This  fact 
is  recognized  by  the  present  requirement  that  each  arts  and 
science  student  shall  master  one  or  two  languages,  without 
the  specification  of  any  particular  one.     If  no  one  language 


Ii6  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

opens  the  way  to  a  knowledge,  culture,  and  experience  which, 
in  addition  to  what  is  furnished  through  the  vernacular, 
must  be  required  of  all,  it  follows  that  the  requirement  of  one 
or  two  is  wholly  unjustifiable.  A  particular  one  might  be 
required  of  all  on  the  ground  of  its  special  fitness  for  a  dis- 
cipline peculiar  to  language  study  in  general.  This  peculiar 
discipline,  however,  reduces  itself  to  linguistic  habits  which 
can  carry  over  from  one  language  to  another,  of  which  the 
carrying  over  the  habit  of  noticing  the  spelling  of  foreign 
words  to  English  words  is  one  of  the  most  practical  examples. 
But  quite  aside  from  the  further  arguments  developed  in  the 
present  discussion,  Mr.  Bain  long  ago  demonstrated  that 
language  study  involves  no  general  discipline  exclusively  its 
own,^^  which  applies  outside  the  linguistic  field  itself.  It  is 
true,  of  course,  that  a  large  proportion  of  individuals  need 
Ready  use  some  language  or  languages  other  than  their 
of  foreign  own  for  the  sake  of  knowledge  and  experience 
language       j^q^  possible  through  the  vernacular  alone — for 

essential  to 

many,  but  the  sake  of  travel,  for  the  pleasure  of  some  specific 
not  to  be  re-  culture,  for  the  sake  of  some  industry  or  vocation, 
quired  of  all.  f^^.  ^^^  ^^-^^  ^f  g^^^  ^^j^  ^f  advanced  study. 

This  means,  however,  that  the  majority  will  necessarily  elect 
some  language  or  be  required  to  take  it  as  a  condition  to  some 
phase  of  specialization,  and  not  that  the  study  of  foreign 
language,  especially  of  a  specified  foreign  language,  shall  be 
required  of  all. 

6.  The  Limitation  to  the  Formal  Value  of  Mathematical  Study 
While  a  certain  proportion  of  the  instructors  in  mathemat- 
ics who  responded  to  the  questionnaire  of  the  American 
sub-committee  of  the  international  commission  on  the  teach- 
ing of  mathematics  insist  on  the  cultural  value  of  the  subject, 
the  majority  ignore  this  phase  of  its  possible  usefulness  alto- 
gether.^ This  is  significant  of  the  limited  extent  to  which 
many-sidedness  is  inherent  in  mathematical  study.  Obvi- 
ously, it  neither  abounds  in  a  wealth  of  ideas  and  activities 
which  will  add  to  the  apperceiving  mass  through  incidental 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  117 

association  with  others,  nor  in  ideas  which  incidentally  re- 
membered will  constitute  centers  for  valuing  apperception. 
As  a  pure  science,  its  details  certainly  associated  with  each 
other  give  rise  to  specific  discipline  rather  than  to  continually 
changing  relationships.  From  the  standpoint  of  application 
and  general  discipline,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  examine  into 
the  extent  to  which  it  demands  varying  apperception,  and  so 
promotes  its  development  through  reorganizing  the  subject 
matter  of  more  concrete  subjects. 

If  any  branch  of  mathematics  is  related  to  life  in  a  many- 
sided  way,  it  is  arithmetic.  As  has  been  already  pointed  out,  v^ 
however,  the  stimulus  to  arithmetical  operation 
is  too  general  for  a  varying  association  of  number  application 
or  numerical  principles  with  all  possible  ideas  to  of  mathe- 
serve  any  useful  arithmetical  purpose.  In  gen-  maticsinde- 
eral  experience  it  is  not  recognition  of  the  presence  fn^uction. 
of  number  or  the  possibility  of  operation  that 
should  suggest  operation,  but  the  need  of  it.  The  few  fields 
in  which  each  mathematical  principle  is  usefully  and  cer- 
tainly applied  in  the  every-day  life  of  the  majority  of  learners 
are,  of  course,  definitely  associated  with  it  as  part  of  the 
specific  discipline  of  the  subject.  Even  this  can  be  overdone, 
as  in  the  old  association  of  percentage  with  brokerage,  foreign 
exchange,  and  duties  on  imports.  The  experience  and  vocab- 
ulary essential  to  such  applications  belong  to  the  specialist. 
It  is  not  the  possibility  of  teaching  mathematical  subject 
matter  in  many-sided  relationships  with  life  in  general  that 
is  questioned,  but  its  necessity  to  arithmetic  and  its  useful- 
ness to  varying  apperception.  Dr.  Eugene  Smith,  himself 
chairman  of  the  sub-committee  mentioned  above,  with  Her- 
bartian  skill  has  associated  arithmetical  principles  with  a 
great  variety  of  technical  processes  and  other  forms  of 
specialized  experience.  Such  association,  however,  though 
common  in  many  modern  text-books,  is  not  necessary  to  as 
general  application  as  is  useful.  In  many  instances  the 
vocabulary  and  experience  involved  belong  to  the  specialist, 
and  are  of  necessity  associated  with  the  general  principle 


Il8  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

when  he  needs  it  in  his  work  or  his  avocation.  In  others, 
they  are  already  fapaihar  to  the  pupils  and  need  not  be  spe- 
cially associated  with  the  habitual  arithmetical  analysis 
Number  too  necessary  to  the  identification  of  the  required 
general  in  principle.  On  the  other  hand,  many-sided  appli- 
es applica-  cation  is  useless  in  the  development  of  varying 
tion  to  re-  , .  ,  ....  ,  ,, 

call  many-     apperception  whenever  it  is  too  general  to  call 

sided  asso-  varying  experience  to  mind.  The  fact  that  dol- 
ciations.  j^j.g  ^^^  trilobites  have  been  separately  added  or 
have  been  separately  associated  with  the  idea  of  addition, 
unites  them  by  a  connecting  link  which,  being  suggestive  of 
all  objects  and  possible  of  suggestion  by  all,  is  little  likely  to 
bridge  over  the  gap  between  any  two.  That  is,  number, 
neither  suggesting  its  concrete  applications  nor  being  sug- 
gested by  them,  is  little  likely  to  associate  them  with  each 
other,  while  its  more  concrete  associations  are  not  numerical 
associations  at  all.  Outside  its  own  subject  matter,  arith- 
metic can  develop  varying  apperception  as  it  can  develop 
general  discipline,  but  in  both  cases  unnecessarily  from  the 
standpoint  of  varying  apperception  and  general  discipline. 
Its  very  demand  of  certainty  makes  varying  association  less 
likely,  because  practically  all  of  its  subject  matter  being  made 
certain,  there  is  little  left  for  incidental  remembrance  and 
apperception.  What  is  true  of  arithmetic  is  true  of  the 
higher  mathematics  as  well.  Mr.  Bain  summed  the  whole 
matter  up  when  he  said,  ^^In  the  point  of  view  of  information, 
the  uses  of  mathematics  are  more  obvious;  but  these  uses 
when  carried  to  their  utmost  stretch,  suppose  special  profes- 
sions.'' He  further  asserts,  however,  that  "In  the  examples 
of  arithmetical  and  algebraic  operations,  much  valuable 
The  limit  practical  knowledge  is  incidentally  obtained,  and 
to  the  use  more  might  be  done  to  turn  the  opportunity  to 
of  mathe-      account."^^    Dr.  Smith  has  been  wisely  turning 

matics  as  a  •/  o 

means  to  the  opportunity  to  account.  When  a  sufficient 
varying  ap-  variety  of  applications  are  found  in  familiar 
perception,  experience,  the  limit  to  the  use  of  mathematics 
as  a  means  to  varying  apperception  lies  in  introducing  new 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  119 

terms  and  concepts  that  add  to  the  difficulty  of  the  work, 
by  either  unnecessarily  anticipating  experience  which  will  in 
due  course  of  time  become  familiar,  or  trespassing  upon  the 
domain  of  specialization.  Carried  to  this  point,  the  "new 
arithmetic' '  is  not  arithmetic  at  all.  If  the  only  usefulness  of 
mathematics  lay  in  its  contribution  to  varying  apperception, 
it  would  not  be  necessary  to  include  it  in  the  general  course 
of  study. 

7.  Varying  Apperception  Furthered  by  the  Presentation  of  the 
Most  Many-sided  and  Recurring  Relationships  Wher- 
ever Found 
On  the  other  hand,  literature,  history,  sociology,  economics, 
the  natural  sciences,  and  all  'other  subjects  rich  in  concrete 
subject  matter,  with  an  abundance  of  relationships  not  made 
certain  through  specific  discipline,  both  furnish  continual 
material  for  varying  apperception  and  demand  its  develop- 
ment. While  even  the  seemingly  most  useless  associations 
that  experience  brings  about  should  be  welcomed  in  so  far 
as  they  are  not  antagonistic  to  the  educational  aim,  it  is  the 
function  of  instruction  to  further  a  useful  varying  appercep- 
tion by  presenting  for  incidental  association  ideas  most 
many-sided  and  frequently  recurring.  This  means  select- 
tion  from  all  phases  of  human  experience  and  branches  of 
knowledge  whether  real  or  abstract,  on  precisely  the  same 
principles  as  in  the  valuation  of  material  from  the  stand- 
point of  direct  preparation.  In  the  case  of  indirect  prepara- 
tion, however,  many-sidedness  is  in  itself  useful  regardless  of 
whether  the  relationships  in  question  are  known  to  further 
the  educational  aim  or  not.  If  they  are  known  directly  to 
further  it,  many-sidedness  and  frequency  make  furtherance 
exceedingly^probable.  Hence,  from  the  standpoint  of  varying 
apperception,  the  potential  usefulness  of  all  directly  useful 
material  is  measured  by  many-sidedness  and  frequency.  If 
they  are  not  known  directly  to  further  the  aim,  the  possibility 
of  furtherance  as  well  as  its  extent  are  measured  in  the  samq 
way. 


I20  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

8.  Material  Organized  for  Direct  Furtherance  Most    Useful 

to  Varying  Apperception,  Because  it  is  Composed  of  the 
Most  Many-sided  and  Frequently  Recurring  Relation- 
ships from  all  Branches 

However,  material  organized  for  the  direct  furtherance  of 
the  aim,  both  in  its  furnishing  of  material  for  varying  apper- 
ception and  in  the  necessity  for  its  furtherance  of  it,  possesses 
great  advantages  not  only  over  the  abstract  subject,  but  over 
those  branches  organized  from  the  academic  viewpoint  alone. 
Over  the  abstract  subjects,  because  it  must  involve  the  pre- 
sentation of  a  vast  amount  of  potentially  useful  material 
which  cannot  be  certainly  memorized,  and  because  its  rela- 
tionships which  are  made  certain  depend  for  their  highest 
usefulness  upon  their  varying  apperception  of  and  through 
what  is  thus  potentially  useful.  Over  even  the  academic 
subjects  most  rich  in  content,  because  both  its  potentially 
useful  material,  and  that  which  is  made  certainly  useful, 
must  be  the  most  many-sided  and  frequently  recurring  that 
all  branches  of  knowledge  and  phases  of  experience  can 
ajfford.  Finally,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  even  in  special- 
ization, the  usefulness  of  an  academic  subject  in  the  further- 
ance of  varying  apperception  and  in  utilizing  varying  apper- 
ception for  the  furtherance  of  its  special  aim  depends  upon  the 
many-sidedness  and  frequency  of  recurrence  of  the  material 
presented  to  the  learner. 

9.  Recapitulation  of  the  Advantages  of  Direct  Preparation 

Over  the  Formal  Branches  in  the  Furtherance  of  General 
Discipline 

From  the  standpoint  of  general  discipline,  the  advantages 
of  direct  preparation  over  the  formal  subjects  have  already 
been  demonstrated.  Every  advantage  it  possesses  for  cumu- 
lative impression,  mere  remembrance,  and  varying  apper- 
ception ensures  a  condition  advantageous  to  general  disci- 
pline. Direct  preparation  compels  continuity  of  habit. 
The  abstract  or  academic  subject  which  does  not  become  a 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  121 

part  of  either  direct  preparation  or  specialization  is  soon  for- 
gotten. 

Direct  preparation  compels  a  highly  complex  system  which 
is  itself  a  part  of  life.  The  pure  science  and  abstract  subject 
are  inherently  remote  from  Hfe,  and  the  formal  discipline  is 
at  times  selected  on  account  of  its  extreme  remoteness.  Yet 
the  usefulness  of  the  academic  subject  to  a  general  discipline 
that  is  not  confined  to  its  own  subject  matter  is  wholly 
dependent  upon  many-sided  relationship  to  hfe. 

The  getieral  appHcation  in  Hfe  of  habits  having  useful 
general  stimuli  is  essential  to  direct  preparation.  For  the 
academic  subject  and  especially  for  the  formal  subject  general 
appHcation  outside  its  own  subject  matter  is  wholly  unneces- 
sary. The  very  method  inherent  in  the  formal  subject,  while 
compelling  specific  discipline,  is  hostile  to  general  discipHne, 
In  direct  preparation  all  habits  that  are  made  certain  are 
generaUy  useful  in  life  outside  the  school,  and  can  be  so  taught 
that  their  stimuli  are  just  general  enough  to  be  useful.  In 
the  formal  subjects,  in  order  to  master  the  habits  that  are 
generally  useful,  far  more  that  is  only  specifically  useful 
must  be  just  as  certainly  made  habitual,  while  the  stimuli 
to  the  generally  useful  habits  cannot  be  limited  except  through 
the  certain  association  with  them  of  particular  fields  of  ap- 
plication. 

Finally,  useful  general  discipline  through  the  formal  sub- 
ject is  found  to  be  absolutely  dependent  upon  both  specifically 
associated  knowledge  outside  the  formal  subject  matter  and 
upon  habits  of  analysis  and  synthesis  in  specific  fields  or  in 
response  to  specific  stimuH,  which,  after  all,  must  be  devel- 
oped through  direct  preparation. 

Even  the  single  advantage  for  specific  discipline  which 
remoteness  from  life  gives  to  abstract  subjects  or  pure  science 
involves  a  disadvantage  which  far  more  than  counterbalances 
it.  It  is  true  that  the  subject  matter  of  branches  whose 
content  is  concrete  or  directly  useful,  on  account  of  its  con- 
creteness  tends  to  be  more  firmly  associated  in  the  minds  of 
the  students  through  individual  and  varying  apperception 


122  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

than  through  the  relationships  most  specifically  useful  or 
those  essential  to  general  discipline.  Although  this  may  mean 
more  immediate  distraction  than  while  abstract  relationships 
are  being  formed,  it  also  means  that  the  ordinary  operation 
of  individual  apperception  is  far  less  likely  to  call  abstract 
relationships  to  mind.  Number  symbols  and  formula  apply 
Wh'l  ^^  units,  not  to  things,  and  are  too  universal 

many-sided-  either  for  things  to  call  them  to  mind  or  for  them 
nessmay  in  themselves  to  constitute  a  suggestive  and  ap- 
atteSion  perceiving  mass  for  every-day  experience.  But 
during  the  if  general  sequences  and  groups  high  in  their 
mastery  of  relative  usefulness  are,  in  spite  of  the  constant 
it  finally  *  Struggle  against  purely  individual  apperception, 
makes  once  certainly  and  persistently  formed,  they  ever 

them  dom-  continue  to  serve  as  a  means  not  only  to  the 
apperception  of  new  material  in  the  relationships 
in  which  it  will  be  most  directly  and  certainly  useful,  but 
continually  recalling  individually  apperceived  material  and 
being  recalled  by  it,  they  act  as  a  persistent  reorganizing 
force  and  cumulatively  increase  the  usefulness  of  the  whole 
mental  content.  Even  if  this  reorganization  were  as  pos- 
sible in  the  case  of  the  formal  subject,  it  would  not  be  as 
useful.  The  counteraction  of  individual  and  varying  ap- 
perception, in  itself  so  useful,  must,  therefore,  be  met  by  a 
more  systematic  and  determined  effort  firmly  to  memorize 
and  retain  the  general  groups  and  sequences  most  essential 
to  a  useful  general  discipline.  They,  and  not  individual 
apperception,  must,  through  continual,  unvarying,  and, 
hence,  mechanical  repetition,  come  to  dominate. 

lo.  General  Conclusions  Concerning  the  Course  of  Study 
In  short,  from  the  broader  standpoint  of  formal  self- 
activity,  including  general  discipline,  the  traditionally  ^'formal 
subjects,''   formal   through   a  formal   discipline 
propositions  which  the  ^'faculty  psychology''  fully  justified, 
are  not  only  not  exclusively  formal,  but  lack  the 
educational  or  formal  certainty  and  potentiality  of  direct 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  1 23 

preparation.  As  regards  the  course  of  study,  four  momen- 
tous and  more  or  less  revolutionary  conclusions  are  ap- 
parent: First,  no  subjects,  especially  no  abstract  or  formal 
subjects,  such  as  the  languages  and  mathematics,  can  be 
required  as  wholes  on  disciplinary  grounds  alone.  Second, 
the  curriculum  "required''  in  common  of  all  should  include 
only  those  subjects  as  wholes  or  parts  of  subjects,  that  are 
directly  useful  to  all  individuals  who  are  not  specialists,  or 
that,  like  the  mother  tongue  and  basal  geographical  and  his- 
torical associations  yet  to  be  discussed,  are  indirectly  useful 
in  the  highest  degree  through  the  many-sidedness  and  fre- 
quency of  recurrence  of  their  subject  matter  in  every-day  Hfe. 
This  does  not  mean  that  each  individual  may  not  also  be  re- 
quired to  take  some  specialty,  but  rather  that  all  individuals 
shall  not  be  compelled  to  take  the  same  specialty  on  formal 
grounds  alone.  Third,  to  form  the  content  of  this  required 
curriculum,  selection  of  relationships  must  be  made  from  the 
whole  range  of  human  knowledge  and  experience  on  the  basis 
of  the  degree  of  sensation  or  feeling  and  the  relative  many- 
sidedness  and  frequency  of  recurrence  through  which  they 
directly  and  indirectly  further  the  educational  aim.  Fourth, 
the  resulting  subject  matter  must  be  organized  and  taught 
with  a  view  both  to  the  direct  furtherance  of  the  aim  through 
a  highly  systematic  specific  discipline  and  cumulative  impres- 
sion, and  its  indirect  furtherance  through  both  it  and  the 
remaining  forms  of  self-activity — that  is,  mere  remembrance, 
varying  apperception,  and  general  discipline. 

II.  The  Greater  Part  of  Mathematics,  Exclusive  of  Arithmetic, 
Must  he  Eliminated  from  the  Required  General  Course 
To  sum  up  the  effect  of  ail  this  upon  the  curriculum  as  at 
present  organized — ^mathematics,  with  the  exception  of 
limited  parts  of  its  elementary  branches,  is  handed  babilitv 
over  to  the  specialist.  In  elementary  arith-  of  a  broader 
metic,  indeed,  the  process  of  elimination  is  already  elementary 
almost  accomplished,  if  it  has  not  here  and  there  ^^t^e-"^ 
been  carried  too  far  to  ensure  ready  and  com-  matics. 


124  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

plete  mastery  of  its  directly  useful  principles.  When  old 
Thomas  Hill  of  Harvard,  the  forerunner  of  elective  sys- 
tems, though  the  first  text-book  maker  to  popularize  originals 
in  geometry,  insisted  that  the  study  of  higher  mathematics 
should  be  "only  for  those  of  mathematical  ability,"^^  he  had 
in  mind  a  far  broader  course  in  mathematics  for  the  element- 
ary school.  Perhaps  the  selection  of  the  mathematics 
directly  useful  to  all,  in  so  far  as  such  selection  is  possible 
from  an  exact  science,  will  ultimately  realize  his  ideal. 
Although  algebra  and  geometry  as  systematic  wholes  will 
no  longer  be  required,  it  is  essential  that  the  required  ele- 
mentary course  shall  include  enough  algebraic  and  geomet- 
rical subject  matter  to  develop  mathematical  interest  and 
to  determine  individual  fitness  for  mathematical  specializa- 
tion. 

For  the  sake  of  continuity,  the  study  oi  mathematics,  in- 
cluding that  of  generally  useful  phases  of  arithmetic,  should 
be  distributed  at  weekly  or  semiweekly  intervals  throughout 
the  entire  high  school  course.  For  the  additional  reason  that 
failure  to  develop  mathematical  interest  or  ability  in  the  high 
school  may  in  the  case  of  some  individuals  be  overcome  by 
different  instructors,  changed  methods  of  instruction,  and 
other  conditions,  it  should  be  continued  for  the  first  half  year 
in  the  college.  But  mathematics  as  a  required  study  should 
no  longer  include  material  useful  only  to  the  specialist,  should 
no  longer  be  concentrated  into  one  or  two  years  of  the  high 
school  course  and  then  forgotten  until  it  is  partly  revived  in 
the  college,  should  no  longer  consume  the  whole  of  a  hopeless 
college  year  for  those  not  interested  in  it  or  who  are  not  com- 
pelled to  become  so  through  the  demands  of  a  chosen  spe- 
cialty, and,  above  all,  should  no  longer  involve  the  absurd 
and  harmful  requirement  that  a  year  of  mathematical  failure 
shall  be  compensated  for  by  the  repetition  of  the  same  course 
until  failure  is  transformed  to  success.  The  moral  training  in- 
volved in  voluntary  persistence  in  the  face  of  mathematical 
failure  is  invaluable  to  those  students  who  must  master 
mathematics  to  succeed  in  some  specialty  which  involves  it. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  125 

In  the  case  of  others,  it  is  robbed  of  all  incentive,  drives  them 
into  moral  and  intellectual  apathy  or  rebellion,  and  with 
similar  insistence  on  the  mastery  of  a  particular  language,  is 
one  of  the  chief  causes  of  students  dropping  out  of  college,  or 
of  their  failure  to  gain  the  interest  in  alternative  subjects 
that  will  urge  them  on  to  independent  achievement.  It  is  in 
regret  over  such  wasted  opportunity  in  his  own  early  years  at 
Oxford  that  Mr.  R.  H.  Quick  quotes  the  following  passage 
from  Henry  IV:  "I  beseech  you  heartily,  scurvy,  lousy  knave, 
at  my  desires,  and  my  requests,  and  my  petitions,  to  eat, 
look  you,  this  leek:  because,  look  you,  you  do  not  love  it,  nor 
your  affections,  nor  your  appetities,  and  your  digestions,  does 
not  agree  with  it,  I  would  desire  you  to  eat  it." 

If  these  conclusions  appear  radical  and  antagonistic  to 
prevalent  opinion,  it  should  be  remembered  that  they  are 
conclusions  whose  disproval  is  possible  through  demonstra- 
tion of  the  fallacy  of  the  cumulative  propositions  on  which 
they  have  been  based.  It  should  also  be  held  in  mind  that 
they  apply  to  only  a  limited  portion  of  the  student  body. 

Because  all  students  of  the  sciences  in  their  most  advanced 
stages,  and  of  the  various  branches  of  engineering  and  other 
professions  require  thorough  knowledge  of  the  ^^j^anced 
higher  mathematics,  and  even  because  a  multi-  algebra  and 
tude  of  mathematical  instructors  are  in  conse-  geometry 
quence  required,  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  willresiUt^ 
whole  mass  of  students  will  specialize  in  mathe-  in  more 
matics.    The   science   of  mathematics  will  lose  J^ojo^s^ 
nothing  from  the  fact  that  students  not  inter-      ^^^^^' 
ested  in  it  and  who  do  not  need  it  as  a  part  of  their  direct 
preparation  for  life  are  eliminated  from  mathematical  classes. 
On  the  contrary,  with  smaller  and  more  earnest  classes  on  the 
one  hand,  and  greater  continuity  through  academic  and  pro- 
fessional speciaKzation  on  the  other,  the  mathematical  work 
of  the  college  and  university  should  become  more  efficient. 
At  present  this  favorable  condition  can  be  brought  about,  and 
is  in  part  brought  about,  only  by  driving  men  not  adapted  to 
mathematical  study  out  of  college.    It  is  better,  after  all,  to 


126  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

attain  it  by  permitting  them  to  gain  their  general  discipline 
in  some  other  way.  The  magnificent  specific  discipline 
inherent  in  the  mathematical  subject  matter  has  not  been 
questioned.  It  will  be  more  certain  and  complete,  however, 
and  self-activity  within  the  specialty  from  the  solution  of 
originals  in  geometry  to  research  in  the  newest  and  most 
abstruse  phases  of  the  science  be  the  better  assured,  if  the 
conditions  already  discussed  as  favorable  to  general  discipline 
are  brought  about  through  pedagogical  method  within  the 
mathematical  field  itself.  Beyond  that,  mathematics  does 
not  require  discipline  to  go,  though  in  part  it  can  and,  in 
varying  degree  with  individuals,  it  will. 

12.  Although  One  or  More  Foreign  Languages  Are  Useful  to 
Most  Students,  They  Should  he  Required  Only  of  Those 
to  Whose  Specialization  They  Are  Essential 

Much  the  same  can  be  said  of  the  foreign  languages,  as 
distinct  from  foreign  literatures.  Greek  has  already  been 
handed  over  to  the  specialist — to  the  specialist  in  culture  as 
well  as  in  theology,  philosophy,  and  philology.  Probably 
a  carefully  limited  amount  of  Latin  etymology  mil  be  found 
to  be  of  high  usefulness  in  the  mastery  of  the  meanings  of 
English  words  and  especially  in  their  spelling.  That  is, 
in  place  of  the  usual  effort  at  exhaustive  lists  of  Latin  deriva- 
tives, all  examples  that  mislead  from  either  the  standpoint 
of  meaning  or  of  spelling  must  be  omitted.  Outside  of  this, 
and  indeed  in  most  cases  including  this,  Latin  has  also  become 
a  phase  of  specialization,  except  in  institutions  w^hich  can  af- 
ford to  offer  but  one  or  two  languages,  and  must  require  them 
of  all,  because  alternative  courses  cannot  be  given.  Par- 
ticular modern  languages  have  never  been  required  except  as 
involved  in  some  phase  of  specialization.  At  least  two  lan- 
guages, ancient  or  modern,  however,  are  still  generally  re- 
quired for  college  entrance  and  as  a  condition  to  graduation. 
It  is  this  requirement  that  in  the  small  high  schools  and  col- 
leges still  forces  a  particular  language  upon  all  students. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  127 

That  is,  the  fault  is  directly  economic  and  only  indirectly 
pedagogic.  The  New  York  High  School  Teachers'  Com- 
mittee has  raised  the  question  as  to  whether  but  one  required 
language  cannot  be  substituted  for  two.^^  Wood- 
row  Wilson  would  substitute  more.  In  the  light  one  foreign 
of  the  preceding  discussion  the  answer  is  plain,    language 

Since  it  is  an  incontrovertible  fact  that  both  direct    ^^^^}^  5® 
i-r  11  1  11  required, 

preparation  for  life  and  the  adequate  develop-    most  stud- 

ment  of  every  formal  phase  of  self-activity  are  ents  should 
possible  without  the  study  of  any  foreign  language,  ^^more?^^ 
neither  one  nor  more,  but  no  foreign  language 
should  be  required  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  involved  in  such  parts 
of  etymology  as  are  helpful  to  the  mastery  of  the  vernacular 
itself.  It  is  true  that  the  concrete  indication  of  grammatical 
distinctions  through  an  inflected  language  might,  as  Alexan- 
der Bain  has  pointed  out,  make  the  transition  from  Greek 
or  Latin  to  English  an  instance  of  proceeding  from  the  sub- 
jectively simple  to  the  complex.  But  where  the  essentials 
of  English  grammar  have  been  mastered  before  the  study  of 
the  foreign  language  is  begun,  this  advantage  becomes  im- 
possible or  reduces  itself  to  a  review  and  concrete  re-enforce- 
ment of  distinctions  but  partially  mastered  that  should  and 
could  have  been  thoroughly  mastered.  That  translation  in 
general  and  Latin  etymology  in  particular  aid  in  the  mastery 
of  the  English  language,  and  should  be  made  so  to  aid  far 
more  effectively  where  specialization  demands  the  foreign 
tongue,  is  a  readily  apparent  fact.  But  no  unprejudiced 
thinker  will  seriously  contend  that  the  years  of  study  neces- 
sary to  free  translation  are  economically  spent  by  an  indi- 
vidual who  does  not  need  the  foreign  language  either  as  a 
means  to  specialized  study  or  experience,  as  a  relatively 
effective  mode  of  developing  formal  self-activity,  or  as  a 
special  instrument  to  culture,  many-sided  knowledge,  and 
experience.  Neither  a  branch  of  the  higher  mathematics 
nor  a  foreign  language  should  be  uniformly  required  of  all 
who  enter  college  or  who  seek  a  general  as  distinct  from  a 
specialized  college  education. 


128  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Dr.  Wilson's  argument  for  more  foreign  languages  rather 
than  less  as  a  requirement  for  college  entrance/ being  based 
upon  the  greater  relative  readiness  with  which  the  languages 
are  mastered  by  children,  and,  as  he  might  have  added,  the 
continuity  of  instruction  made  possible  by  their  early  study, 
applies  only  on  the  assumption  that  the  languages  are  essen- 
tial to  all  and  that  the  more  of  them  that  are  mastered  the 
better.  That  is,  he  assumes  what  his  argument  is  meant  to 
prove.  So  far  as  many  individuals  are  concerned,  he  is  un- 
doubtedly right,  but  there  is  a  multitude  of  college  graduates 
who  never  fully  mastered  the  languages  which  were  required 
of  them  or  never  put  them  to  use  outside  the  college 
walls. 

If,  from  the  standpoint  of  specialization,  the  majority  of 
individuals  will  continue  to  elect  or  be  compelled  to  take  the 
higher  mathematics,  a  far  greater  majority  will  continue  to 
pursue  the  study  of  one  or  more  languages,  owing  to  their 
wider  usefulness  and  the  greater  number  of  specialties  likely 
to  require  them.  As  already  pointed  out,  aptness  for  linguis- 
tic study  and  the  pleasure  derived  from  it,  love  of  some 
Limited  Special  field  of  culture,  advanced  scientific  re- 
attendance    search,  foreign  business  or  foreign  travel,  even 

in  language  ^]^g  demands  of  certain  forms  of  social  life,  unite 

classes  will 

result  in        to  make  the  omission  of  language  study  more  or 

more  effi-  less  exceptional.  Indeed,  there  is  a  certain  social 
cient  work.^  tendency  toward  the  study  of  what  almost  all 
educated  people  study.  The  aboHtion  of  the  higher  mathe- 
matics as  a  required  subject  in  general  education,  by  in- 
creasing the  time  available  in  high  school  and  college  for  other 
study,  will  tend  in  the  same  direction.  Moreover,  as  in  the 
case  of  mathematics,  the  elimination  from  language  classes 
of  all  individuals  who  neither  through  natural  fitness  or  the 
demand  of  specialization  are  interested  in  language  study  will 
increase  the  thoroughness  and  the  continuity  of  instruction. 
So  long  as  even  the  exceptional  individual  can  be  broadly 
cultured,  effectively  disciplined  in  the  more  inclusive  sense  of 
formal  self-activity,  and  directly  and  effectively  prepared  for 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  129 

moral  and  healthful  living,  social  service,  good  citizenship, 
and  his  individual  vocation  and  avocation  without  the  study 
of  a  foreign  language,  the  study  of  a  foreign  language  should 
not  be  compelled  either  for  entrance  to  a  general  college  course 
or  its  completion. 

From  the  standpoint  of  general  discipline  within  either  a 
particular  foreign  language  or  the  whole  domain  of  linguistic 
study,  a  discipline  of  which  the  carrying  over  of  gramLtnatical 
and  rhetorical  habits  from  a  foreign  language  to  the  vernacu- 
lar is  a  part,  pedagogical  inquiry  must,  as  in  the  case  of 
mathematics,  more  seriously  concern  itself  with  the  study  of 
the  conditions  favorable  to  application.  A  highly  qqj^q^qx 
important  first  step  has  already  been  taken  discipline 
through  the  discussion  which  preceded  and  fol-  within  the 
lowed  the  appointment  in  191 1  of  the  joint  com-  ^ependen^t 
mittee  on  grammatical  nomenclatiure  by  the  on  pedago- 
National  Educational  Association,  the  Modern  ^c  condi- 
Language  Association  of  America,  and  the  Ameri- 
can Philological  Association.  Professor  Hale  has  admirably 
indicated  the  desirability  of  a  terminology  general  enough  to 
unify  language  study  and  to  make  more  readily  possible  the 
carrying  over  of  combinations  and  judgments  from  one  lan- 
guage to  another.^  Professor  Kuersteiner  has  pointed  out  the 
fact  that  a  less  general  terminology  may  be  more  readily 
understood  and  applied  by  school  children  in  the  mastery  of 
one  or  two  foreign  languages.^^  Dr.  Rounds  has  been  a 
national  leader  in  the  effort  to  agree  upon  a  common  termi- 
nology for  all  English  grammars  and  language  books.^^  The 
bearing  of  this  movement  upon  ready  identification  of  the 
general  stimuli  involved  in  application  of  grammatical  dis- 
tinctions, and,  therefore,  upon  general  discipline  within  the 
field  of  language,  is  highly  important,  while  the  analytic 
nature  of  the  discussion  which  characterized  the  recent  Sym- 
posium on  language  teaching  held  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Michigan  Schoolmasters'  Club  is  prophetic  of  a  valuable 
contribution  by  the  national  committee. 


130  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

13.  Bearing  of  the  Analysis  of  Formal  Self -activity  Upon  the 
Place  of  the  Natural  Sciences  in  the  General  Course  of 
Study 

The  effect  upon  the  natural  sciences  of  the  conclusions 
reached  from  the  analysis  of  formal  self -activity  is  less  revo- 
lutionary. Although  most  colleges  have  been  including  in 
their  required  course  of  study  at  least  chemistry  and  physics, 
the  movement  has  already  begun  toward  requiring  an  equal 
or  a  greater  amount  of  work  in  one  or  two  sciences  elected 
from  the  whole  group,  rather  than  the  customary  amount  of 
work  in  one  or  two  specified  sciences.  For  example,  it  has 
been  proposed  to  substitute  for,  say,  two  required  units  of  work 
in  physics  and  chemistry  respectively,  three  units  of  work 
in  each  of  any  two  of  the  natural  sciences.  The  domi- 
nance of  experimental  method  in  all  the  natural  sciences 
vitiates  the  objection  which  might  have  been  urged  against 
this  on  the  ground  of  Bain's  distinction  between  the  disciplin- 
ary value  of  the  experimental  sciences  and  of  sciences  of  classi- 
fication. As  against  requiring  any  pure  sciences  as  wholes, 
however,  much  the  same  arguments  apply  as  in  the  case  of 
the  languages.  Since  the  entire  system  of  knowledge  and 
activities  belonging  to  any  one  of  the  sciences  is  non-essential 
to  many-sidedness  and  culture,  the  requirement  of  one  or  two 
sciences  as  systematic  wholes  is  obviously  based  upon  disci- 
plinary grounds  alone.  And  on  that  ground  it  would  be  jus- 
tified, if  the  useful  training  in  adaptation  as  distinct  from  ap- 
plication involved  in  experimental  work  were  peculiar  to  the 
natural  sciences  alone.  While  scientific  method 
study  of  ^^  ^^t  t^^s  peculiar  to  a  naturalistic  and  objective 
science  ade-   subject  matter,  the  necessity  of  selected  parts  of 

quate  for       natural   sciences  to  direct  preparation  for  life 
formation  ,         .  .,  ,  ....  .    .  ;_,, 

of  the  habits  niakes  it.  possible  to  utilize  its  training.     The 

peculiar  to     new  movement  is  wrong  in  compelling  selection 
tation°^^°"    ^^^"^    among    the    natural    sciences    as    wholes. 
Selection  must  be  made  from  within  them.     Per- 
haps all  the  natural  science  that  is  most  essential  to  life  in 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  131 

general,  both  in  its  many-sidedness  and  frequency  of  recur- 
rence, can  be  taught  in  and  below  the  high  school.  The  so- 
called  courses  in  "general''  or  "elementary"  science  that  have 
recently  been  successfully  introduced  into  the  high  schools  of 
Pittsburgh  and  elsewhere  are  planned  from  this  point  of  view. 
The  old  physical  geography  courses  were  equally  composite 
without  ensuring  the  same  many-sided  relation  to  every-day 
life.  More  than  this,  the  general  science  is  experimental  and 
disciplinary  in  place  of  being  merely  informational.  Through 
laboratory  work  the  pupils  are  both  directly  prepared  for  life 
and  given  invaluable  sense  training  and  a  form  of  mental  and 
manual  development  which,  while  involved  in  other  phases  of 
direct  preparation  for  life,  is  thus  strongly  supplemented  and 
re-enforced.  Thomas  Hill  believed  that  enough  of  this  sort 
of  instruction  can  be  given  in  the  elementary  and  high  schools 
to  leave  natural  science  in  the  college  and  university  entirely 
to  the  specialist.^  Both  the  abundance  of  naturalistic  sub- 
ject matter  and  the  desirability  of  continuity  in  the  material 
of  instruction  make  it  probable  that  he  is  wrong.  If  he  is,  it 
is  likely  that  when  the  test  of  comparative  worth,  both  from 
the  standpoint  of  direct  preparation  and  of  formal 
development,  is  pedagogically  applied,  it  will  be  cQ^^se  ^^ 
found  that  a  similar  selection  of  more  advanced  should  in- 
subject  matter  than  is  within  the  ready  compre-    cl^f  ©  ^ 

vflnctv  01 
hension  of  the  ordinary  high  school  pupil,  to    material 

which,  however,  the  general  science  of  the  high  taken  from 
school  has  been  preparatory,  will  be  far  more  gcfences^* 
useful  than  the  study  of  one  or  two  pure  sciences 
as  wholes.  In  any  event,  the  proposed  status  of  natural 
science  in  the  college  is  inconsistent.  If  students  are  per- 
mitted to  elect  any  two  natural  sciences  to  meet  the  require- 
ment, why,  from  the  disciplinary  point  of  view,  not  one  in 
place  of  two?  Except  from  the  standpoint  of  direct  prepara- 
tion or  specialization,  one  taught  through  a  longer  term  of 
years  than  is  probable  with  two,  will  ensure  a  more  certain 
specific  discipline.  In  any  event,  the  likelihood  of  the  general 
application  of  the  resulting  habits  is  in  proportion  to  the 


132  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

extent  to  which  a  subject  matter  naturally  allied  to  every-day 
life  is  still  more  many-sidedly  connected  with  it  through 
instruction. 

14.  Increased  Contribution  to  Required  Subject  Matter  from 

the  Subjects  Rich  in  Humanistic  Content 
Perhaps  the  most  dramatic  result  of  analytic  investigation 
of  formal  self-activity  is  the  reversal  of  the  relative  place  in 
the  curriculum  held  by  literature,  history,  sociology,  civics, 
and  economics  as  compared  with  mathematics  and  the 
languages.  The  latter  become  electives;  it  is  highly  prob- 
able that  when  the  proposed  test  of  comparative  worth  is 
applied,  the  former  will  each  furnish  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
required  subject  matter  as  to  become  required  subjects. 
Each  of  these  subjects  is  so  broad  in  its  content  that  the  col- 
lege course,  after  either  furnishing  or  taking  for  granted  its 
general  organization,  necessarily  selects  here  and  there  spe- 
cialized phases.  Direct  preparation  demands  that  whether 
this  specialization  is  of  period  or  of  topic,  it  shall  include  all 
directly  useful  details  that  are  essential,  in  the  relationships 
and  the  form  which  most  certainly  and  most  potently  further 
right  living,  good  health,  general  industrial  efficiency,  social 
service,  and  good  citizenship  as  well  as  avocation.  Selection 
which  disregards  this  for  a  vain  effort  at  exhaustive  represen- 
tation and  organization,  passes  into  the  territory  of  academic, 
scientific,  or  vocational  specialization. 

15.  The  Use  of  Selected  Portions  of  Academic  Branches  No 

Menace  to  Discipline 
At  first  thought  the  academic  specialist  sees  in  the  partial 
use  of  his  subject  matter  on  the  basis  of  its  direct  usefulness 
nothing  less  than  the  destruction  of  its  system  and  the  loss 
of  the  resulting  discipline.  His  aim  is  completeness,  both  in 
inclusiveness  of  subject  matter  and  in  degree  of  organization. 
To  be  sure,  under  the  influence  of  culture-epoch,  biology,  and 
genetic  psychology  he  has  attempted  to  adapt  his  elementary 
text-books  to  the  pupils  of  the  age  for  which  they  are  intended, 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  133 

but  his  aim  has  never  ceased  to  be  as  complete  a  treatment  as 
is  within  the  comprehension  of  the  pupils  and  as  the  time  he 
can  secure  in  the  course  of  study  permits.     His  attitude  of 
mind  is  that  of  the  pure  scientist,  not  that  of  the  teacher. 
Completeness  is  essential  to  the  advancement  of  science 
through  the  specialist,  and  to  the  spiritual  inheritance  which 
each  generation  must  pass  on  to  the  next.     It  is  not  essential 
to  instruction,  either  through  direct  preparation  ^j^^  ^^^  ^^ 
or  the  resulting  phases  of  formal  self-activity.     It  the  special- 
is,  however,  mainly  from  this  latter  viewpoint  ^^t  a  com- 
that  the  specialist  has  sought  to  so  far  as  possible  ^j^^^  hostile 
present  his  subject  as  a  logical  and  scientific  to  interest 
whole.     It  must  contain  as  many  details  as  adap-   ^2^^^*^"' 
tation  permits,  but,  above  all,  they  must  be  so 
selected  as  to  secure  the  completeness  of  organization  which 
has  been  assumed  to  be  necessary  to  discipline.     That  is, 
even  in  the  exact  sciences  there  has  been  partial  presentation 
of  the  branches.     But  however  bare  of  illustrative  material 
and  the  material  essential  to  adequate  application  the  text- 
book may  be,  it  must  cover  the  entire  range  of  the  specialty 
and  present  it  as  an  entire  though  abstract  and  attenuated 
whole. 

The  result  has  been  admittedly  unsatisfactory,  especially 
from  the  disciphnary  point  of  view.     Pupils  are  not  thorough 
in  mathematics  or  the  languages.     They  are  not 
interested  in  history  and  literature.     The  remedy  selection  ^' 
is  obviously  concentration,  but  why  on  one  or  within  the 

two  branches  as  wholes?    It  is  possible  at  the  7"^°^^ 

r  .11  .  ^   .  branches, 

expense  ot  many-sidedness  to  require  sufficient 

time  in  the  school  course  for  the  complete  mastery  of  arith- 
metic, algebra,  and  geometry,  and  two  languages  for  every 
pupil  who  under  that  inexorable  condition  will  continue  in 
school.  The  procrustean  classical  course,  against  which  such 
lovers  of  the  classics  as  Sydney  Smith^^  and  Thomas  Arnold 
revolted,  accomplished  this.  But  the  result  is  at  best  a 
highly  limited  specific  discipline  for  the  survivors,  hostile 
not  only  to  many-sidedness,  but  to  both  the  direct  preparation 


134  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  the  general  discipline  to  which  it  is  an  equally  favorable 
condition.  The  alternative  is  concentration  within  the 
branch  through  a  still  more  partial  selection  from  its  subject 
matter.  This,  obviously  desirable  from  the  standpoint  of 
specific  discipline,  in  so  far  as  specific  discipline  is  not  de- 
pendent upon  the  mastery  of  the  organization  of  the  branch  as 
a  whole,  makes  possible  the  selection  of  the  parts  most  cer- 
tainly and  specifically  useful  from  the  standpoint  of  direct 
preparation,  furthers  many-sidedness  and  general  discipline, 
and  even  renders  judicious  specialization  more  probable  by 
making  the  first  step  taken  in  every  field  practical,  interest- 
ing, and  sure. 

1 6.  The  Partial  Subject  Matter  Selected  Can  Usually  Be  Organ- 
ized from  the  Standpoint  of  the  Academic  Subject,  as  Well 
as  from  that  of  Direct  Preparation 
And  even  specific  discipline  is  not  dependent  upon  the 
mastery  of  the  branches  as  wholes.  Selection  from  the 
standpoint  of  direct  preparation  will  ensure  in  many  respects 
a  different  content  for  certain  of  the  branches,  but  unless  a 
subject  is  almost  wholly  lacking  in  what  directly  prepares 
for  life,  the  subject  matter  can  be  organized  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  specialty  as  well  as  from  the  standpoint  of  direct 
preparation.  Indeed,  in  most  cases  the  organization  peculiar 
to  the  special  branch  not  only  is  as  possible  through  its  directly 
useful  parts  as  through  the  specialty  as  a  whole,  but  is  as 
essential  to  direct  preparation  as  to  formal  self-activity. 
Judged  by  the  many-sidedness  and  frequency  of  recurrence 
which  have  already  been  seen  to  be  the  basis  for  selection, 
the  general  sequences  of  ideas  and  actions  in  time  and  space 
characteristic  of  general  history,  geography,  and  literature 
will  be  found  to  be  indispensable,  while  the  selection  of  directly 
useful  details  results  both  in  the  topical  study  of  citizenship, 
industry,  and  morals  throughout  all  times,  lands,  and  litera- 
tures, as  well  as  throughout  the  more  intensive  treatments  of 
particular  periods,  countries,  or  writers  in  which  such  details 
may  exceptionally  abound. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  135 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  easy  to  demonstrate  that  the  thor- 
ough mastery  of  a  part  of  arithmetic  or  geometry,  or  of  se- 
lected facts  and  principles  from  a  group  of  sciences,  can  be 
made  specifically  disciplinary  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
specialty.  One  set  of  experiments  will  serve  as  well  as  an- 
other to  develop  the  habits  essential  in  scientific  investiga- 
tion. The  arithmetical  discipline  which,  as  Professor  Schwatt 
urged,  can  be  as  well  developed  through  a  more  complete 
study  of  number  as  through  higher  mathematics,^^  can  be  even 
better  developed  through  the  complete  mastery  of  selected 
arithmetical  operations  or  practical  operations  selected  from 
the  whole  range  of  number.  The  foreign  languages  alone, 
since  their  peculiar  usefulness  is  instrumental,  cannot  be 
usefully  taught  in  part  except  from  the  standpoint  of  ety- 
mology. Incidentally,  however,  it  is  interesting  to  call  to 
mind  even  here  Thomas  Hill's  final  argument  for  the  teaching 
of  the  languages  from  a  disciplinary  point  of  view:  "But  the 
most  valuable  part  of  the  study  of  words  does  not  consist  in 
acquiring  that  intimate  familiarity  with  any  one  foreign 
language  which  will  enable  one  to  write  or  speak  it,  nor  does 
it  consist  solely  in  the  intellectual  exercise  of  learning  to  read 
it,  and  the  intellectual  vigor  thereby  produced.  It  consists 
rather  in  rising,  by  the  study  of  particular  examples,  to  a 
perception  of  some  general  laws  of  thought  and  laws  of  ar- 
ticulation," for  the  attainment  of  which,  "a  moderate  ac- 
quaintance with  four  or  five  languages  is  better  than  a  thor- 
ough acquaintance  with  one  or  two." 

In  concluding  this  brief  review  of  the  probable  consequences 
of  readjustment,  if,  in  the  spirit  of  the  old  Athenian,  we  fol- 
low the  argument  whithersoever  it  may  lead,  two  funda- 
mental and  controlling  facts  must  be  held  in  mind.  The 
first  is,  that  direct  preparation  for  life  m  general  itself  demands 
as  adequate  specific  discipline  as  can  be  made  possible  by 
concentration  upon  any  of  the  old  "formal"  subjects;  and 
the  second,  that  direct  instruction  prepares  the  way  for  and 
at  every  point  strengthens  the  specialization  which  should 
parallel  it  throughout  the  entire  course  of  education. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE    INTERDEPENDENCE    OF    CULTURE    AND    DIRECT    PREPA- 
RATION   EOR    LIFE 

But  however  convincingly  analysis  may  demonstrate  the 
indispensability  of  direct  preparation  for  life  to  formal  self- 
activity,  it  is  when  it  is  brought  to  bear  upon  the  relation- 
ship of  both  direct  preparation  and  formal  self-activity  to 
culture  that  the  result  seems  most  radical.  It  is  especially 
important  for  some  of  us  to  discern  that  what  is  commonly 
called  culture  is  not  a  distinct  form  of  self-activity,  as  assumed 
by  W.  H.  Payne  and  others,  but  rather  an  attitude  of  mind 
or  apperceptive  state  far  more  largely  dependent  upon  ina.- 
pression  than  upon  discipline.  This  is  especially  true  of  the 
traditional  culture,  something  which  to  be  a  gentleman  one 
must  at  least  have  forgotten  and  which  one  is  likely  to  forget 
because  it  is  based  upon  knowledge  unrelated  to  every-day 
life.  The  fact  that  it  is  so  unrelated,  that  its  concepts  and 
activities  are  not  more  or  less  definitely  associated  with  what 
is  most  certain  to  recur  in  ordinary  experience,  tends  to  re- 
move it  from  the  domain  of  discipline  to  that  of  remembrance 
and  impression,  from  the  domain  of  the  specific  to  that  of  the 
vague,  the  intangible  and  the  relatively  useless — not  utterly 
useless  because  it  is  vague  and  intangible,  but  relatively  use- 
less because  it  is  not  related  to  life.  It  is  in  protest  against 
such  a  culture  that  Emerson  exclaims:  "Poetry  and  prudence 
should  be  coincident.  Poets  should  be  law-givers,  that  is, 
the  boldest  lyric  inspiration  should  not  elude  and  insult, 
but  should  announce  and  lead  the  civil  code  and  the  day's 
work." 

136 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  137 

I.  Culture  Itself  a  Partial  Phase  of  Direct  Preparation  for 

Life 

Indeed,  culture  is  itself  a  phase  of  preparation  for  life,  but 
a  phase  from  which  old  Greek  tradition  has  tended  to  exclude 
the  worker.  Historically  considered,  it  is  not  only  prepara- 
tion for  a  leisure  which  the  mass  of  workers  cannot  share,  but 
through  a  kind  of  education  which  the  mass  of  workers  can- 
not hope  to  attain.  It  has  not  been  partial  preparation  for 
leisure  regarded  merely  as  a  part  of  life,  but  for  a  life  of  leis- 
ure. It  is  this  that  led  Benjamin  Rush,  when  he  came  to 
believe  that  "the  business  of  education  has  acquired  a  new 
complexion  by  the  independence  of  our  country,  "^^  to  argue 
against  the  study  of  Latin  and  Greek  as  unsuited  to  democ- 
racy, not  that  it  failed  to  provide  examples  of  illustrious  citi- 
zenship, but  that  it  set  aside  those  who  mastered  it  as  an 
educated  class  too  often  made  arrogant  through  a  peculiar 
learning.^^  Today  when  democracy  is  triumphant,  when\ 
leisure  is  playing  a  constantly  increasing  part  in  the  life  of  the  \ 
mass,  when  a  far  more  many-sided  learning  is  accessible  S 
through  the  vernacular  than  inspired  the  Renaissance  through 
the  Latin  and  Greek,  it  is  high  time  to  analyze  culture  into 
its  essential  conditions  and  factors  in  ordqr  to  discover  what 
part  of  it,  if  any,  is  involved  in  other  phases  of  direct  prepara- 
tion for  life,  and  to  what  extent,  if  to  any,  preparation  for 
other  phases  of  life  is  antagonistic  to  it. 

2.   The  Essential  Factors  in  Culture 

In  the  first  place,  while  culture  is  liberal  in  the  sense  of 
being  distinct  from  work,  it  does  not  of  necessity  include  all 
knowledge  that  is  not  vocational.  Pure  science  is  distinct 
from  science  applied  in  work  and  may  constitute  a  part  of 
culture,  but  the  specialist  in  pure  science  is  not  necessarily 
a  man  of  culture,  and  a  man  of  culture  does  not  necessarily 
possess  an  intensive  knowledge  of  pure  science.  The  sub- 
ect  matter  of  culture  must  be  liberal,  but,  except  that  it  must 


138  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

include  what  is  essential  to  the  development  of  aesthetic 
appreciation,  the  only  additional  requirements  are  that  it 
must  be  many-sided  and  that  it  must  be  the  common  posses- 
sion either  of  the  whole  educated  leisure  class  or  of  a  social 
group  within  it.  It  is  both  from  the  standpoint  of  many- 
sidedness  and  the  use  of  culture  in  social  intercourse  that  the 
specialist  in  pure  science  may  fail  to  be  a  man  of  culture. 
In  fact,  an  unrestricted  elective  system  with  its  subjective 
specialization,  and  the  group  elective  with  its  specialization, 
whether  academic  or  vocational,  are  equally  hostile  to  cul- 
ture if  instead  of  paralleling  a  liberal  content  required  in  com- 
mon of  all,  they  are  permitted  to  take  its  place.  With  all  of 
their  many-sidedness,  the  pedant  with  the  knowledge  that  he 
fails  to  put  to  use,  the  man  of  science  absorbed  in  the  advance- 
ment of  learning,  and  the  worker  learned  in  all  that  contrib- 
utes to  his  specialty,  may  still  lack  the  essential  elements  of 
culture.     The  many-sidedness  must  not  mean  mere  informa- 

[  tion  or  applied  knowledge,  but  many-sided  social  contact; 

'  through  a  common  knowledge  and  a  common  intellectual  and 
emotional  experience  in  which  the  aesthetic  plays  conspicuous 

J  part.     So  necessary  to  it  is  this  social  quality,  that  culture 

,  must  include  the  politeness  and  civility  which  are  the  outward 
expression  of  the  understanding  and  the  sympathy  in  taste 

\  and  in  thought  which  many-sidedness  of  knowledge  makes 
possible  but  does  not  ensure.  It  would  be  possible  even  to 
conceive  of  a  Bernard  Shaw  possessing  the  form  of  culture, 
but  lacking  its  spirit,  a  superman,  contemptuous  of  his  fellows 
because  the  knowledge  and  experience  which  should  make  him 
comprehend  and  love  humanity  have  only  made  him  a  man 
apart.  The  Philistine  may  know  what  the  man  of  culture 
knows,  but  he  does  not  appreciate  what  he  appreciates  or  love 
what  he  loves. 

3.  Modern  Culture  So  Extensive  as  to  Make  Necessary  Selec- 
tion and  Specialization  in  Culture  Itself 
At  the  beginning  of  the  Renaissance,  many-sidedness  was 
impossible  without  knowledge  of  the  Greek  and  the  Latin 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  139 

tongues.     They  not  only  contained  what  was   Culture 
universal  in  thought,  but  expressed  and  inspired  l^il  ^^y 
what  was  universal  in  literature  and  art.     The  through 
early  humanists  were  a  noble  but  arrogant  band  Latin^with 
— an  intellectual  aristocracy.     The  fact  that  the  leisure  con- 
masses   were    debarred   from   their   intellectual  fined  to  the 
fellowship  because  the  vernacular  was  unfitted    ®^* 
for  scholarly  use  did  not  trouble  their  minds.     "The  cus- 
tom or  convenience  of  ten  thousand  hinds/'  argues  Flori- 
das,  "is  not  to  be  weighed  against  those  of  a  single  man  of 
learning.  "^^    Sir  Thomas  More  alone,  Christian  as  well  as 
humanist,  dared  to  dream  of  a  Utopia  where  all  men  should 
have  leisure  to  live  according  to  the  direction  of  reason  and 
where  reading  was  made  the  chief  avocation  of  the  masses 
because  they  had  "all  their  learning  in  their  own  tongue  which 
is  both  a  copious  and  a  pleasant  language  in  which  a  man  can 
fully  express  his  mind.''^^    Gradually  the  vernaculars  of 
modern  Europe  not  only  were  made  "copious  and  pleasant," 
but  came  to  have  noble  Hteratures  of  their  own,  and  to  in- 
clude through  translation  what  is  best  not  only  in  the  Latin 
and  the  Greek,  but  in  any  other  tongue  which  has  become  the 
medium  of  culture. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with  its  mar- 
vellous expansion  of  the  boundaries  of  human  knowledge,  its 
exploration  and  travel,  scientific  discovery,  industrial  in- 
ventions, commercial  development,  political  revolution  and 
social  reform,  culture  could  not  only  be  found  outside  the 
ancient  languages,  but  could  not  fully  be  found  within  them. 
More  than  this,  the  humanistic  content  has  become  too  broad 
for  all  educated  men  to  possess  it  in  common.  Hence  the 
elective  system  within  a  liberal  education,  the  study  of 
branches  in  part,  and  academic  specialization  which  may 
either  be  a  part  of  culture  or  hostile  to  it.  That  is,  it  has 
become  possible  to  specialize  in  culture  as  in  discipline  or 
vocation. 

In  a  succession  of  simpler  civilizations  the  culture  of  one 
age  or  epoch  has  given  way  to  that  of  the  next.     In  complex 


I40  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Culture  now  modern  civilization  various  cults  exist  side  by 
topermit^^  side — the  classical,  the  literary,  the  artistic,  and 
specializa-  even  the  Browning,  Shakesperian,  or  Wagnerian, 
tion  within  rj.^^  ^^^  Amherst  and  Dean  West's  Graduate 
School  would  represent  specialization  in  culture 
as  certainly  as  Massachusetts'  School  of  Agriculture  or 
Boston  School  of  Technology  represents  specialization  in 
vocation. 

4.  Specialization  in  Culture  Must  he  Preceded  by  a  Culture 

Common  to  All  Educated  Individuals 
However,  just  as  specialization  from  the  standpoint  of 
discipline  or  vocation  must  be  paralleled  and  preceded  by 
direct  preparation  for  life  in  general,  so  specialization  in  cul- 
ture must  be  preceded  by  a  culture  which  is  common  to  all 
cults.  The  thorough  man  of  culture  must  be  a  lover  of  the 
beautiful  in  all  of  its  general  forms.  He  must  possess  a  cul- 
tivated and  discriminating  taste  for  literature,  music,  paint- 
ing, sculpture,  architecture.  He  must  enjoy  aesthetically  and 
ethically  as  well  as  physically  what  is  beautiful  in  nature — 
"the  flower  in  the  crannied  wall"  or  the  sunrise  in  the  Alps. 
He  must  love  learning  for  the  sake  of  learning  as  well  as  for 
its  direct  usefulness  to  man.  He  must  appreciate  each  aes- 
thetic and  intellectual  field,  but  in  some  form  or  other,  rather 
than  in  all  forms  or  the  same  forms.  Some  will  enjoy  one 
novelist  and  not  another;  others,  essays  or  poetry  rather  than 
fiction;  some,  oratorios;  some,  grand  operas;  others,  ballads 
or  symphonies.  But  all  must  acquire  as  common  an  aesthetic 
\  appreciation  of  every  form  of  art  and  all  that  is  great  in  mind 
\  or  beautiful  in  nature  as  innate  tendencies  permit. 

5.  Culture  Must  Not  Antagonize,  hut  Further  Other  Phases  of 

the  Educational  Aim 

Neither  this  common  and  required  culture  nor  the  culture 

that  is  specialized  should  contain  anything  hostile  to  the 

"half  truths  of  service."    On  the  contrary,  what  makes  for 

the  right  enjoyment  of  leisure  is  subordinate  to  what  makes 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  141 

for  healthful  and  ethical  living,  and  should  further  industrial 
efficiency,  good  citizenship,  and  social  service.     Aristophanes 
and  his  fellow  Athenians  were  right  in  struggling  against  the 
philosophy  of  Socrates  and  of  Plato,  which  led  the  young 
Greek  to  exclaim  with  Alcibiades,  ^^He  makes  me  confess 
that  I  ought  not  to  live  as  I  do,  neglecting  the  wants  of  my 
own  soul,  and  busying  myself  with  the  concerns  of  the 
Athenians."    While  all  can  readily  agree  with  Dean  Riley, 
of  Bryn  Mawr,  when  she  insists  that  on  the  whole  the  liberal 
education  of  today  tends  in  the  direction  of  good 
citizenship,  Justice  Hughes,  in  his  Yale  address,  j^^g^  ^q 
shows  clearly  the  need  of  direct  training  for  related  to 
civic  service ;  while  Mr.  Roosevelt  sees,  even  in  the  citizenship, 
classical    reaction    at    Amherst,  an    exceptional  and  all  other 
opportunity   to   teach   political    ideals.^^    It   is   phases  of 
not  enough  to  say  that  everything  hostile  to  p™^ation. 
citizenship  shall  be  omitted  from  modern  cul- 
ture; in  the  selection  of  its  subject  matter  all  that  directly 
makes  for  citizenship  in  any  high  degree  must  be  included. 
It  is  none  the  less  cultural  because  its  emotional  form  makes 
it  potent  for  good. 

From  this  point  of  view,  however,  the  greatest  wrong  done 
modern  education  by  the  domination  of  its  culture  by  ancient 
ideals  has  been  through  the  assumption  that  ideas  and  ac- 
tivities related  to  vocation  are  rendered  illiberal  if  they  are 
also  associated  with  work.  To  the  traditional  thinker  voca- 
tional culture  is  inconceivable.  Culture  must  not  only  pre- 
pare for  leisure,  but  must  be  disassociated  with  work.  While 
many  phases  of  culture  have  no  connection  with  work  at  all, 
wherever  such  connection  can  be  established,  avocation,  the 
calling  of  the  mind  away  from  every-day  routine,  is  most 
readily  brought  about.  The  more  certainly  and  permanently 
a  thousand  lines  of  interest  and  points  of  contact  relate  cul- 
ture to  life  in  general  or  even  put  otherwise  remote  and 
many-sided  material  to  vocational  use,  the  more  certainly 
and  permanently  will  the  worker  come  into  possession  of  the 
broader  life  which  he  can  share  with  those  whose  initial  inter- 


142  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

ests  in  a  common  knowledge  and  emotional  experience  differ 
from  his  own.  The  essential  thing -to  xuiture  fitted  to  a 
democracy  is  not  that  it  shall  have  no  utilitarian  relation- 
ships or  be  taught  in  relationships  which  are  not  utilitarian, 
but  that,  wherever  possible,  it  shall  have  relationships  which 
are  utilitarian  in  the  most  many-sided  way.  It  must  not 
have  but  a  single  door  to  be  reached  through  some  steep  and 
secret  path,  but  a  thousand  doors  through  any  one  of  which 
the  seeker  after  knowledge  may  enter,  and  through  all  of 
which  he  will  at  times  depart. 

But  to  connect  the  aesthetic  and  the  many-sided  with  work 
and  even  with  wage  earning  does  not  mean  that  its  rela- 
tionships must  be  exclusively  or  even  predominantly  voca- 
tional. There  must  be  direct  preparation  for  leisure  distinct 
from  preparation  for  work  and  potent  enough  to  develop  a 
liberal  attitude  of  mind.  The  significant  fact  is  that  culture 
and  direct  preparation  for  phases  of  life  other  than  leisure 
have  in  common  many-sided  ideas  and  activities — some  of 
them  aesthetic — which  can  be  directly  related  to  each. 

From  it  two  important  consequences  follow:  First,  that 
vocation  can  be  liberalized  without  losing  its  efficiency,  and 
that  culture  can  be  related  to  the  "half-truth"  of  service 
without  losing  its  freedom.  Second,  that  culture  and  other 
phases  of  direct  preparation  overlap.  That  is,  discipline, 
specialization,  and  the  various  phases  of  direct  preparation, 
including  culture,  require  a  many-sidedness  that  is  in  part 
identical.  Democracy  demands  a  culture  which,  made  com- 
mon to  all  citizens  through  its  many-sided  interrelationship 
with  direct  preparation  for  life,  shall  not  be  displaced  at  any 
stage  of  the  educational  process  by  specialization,  whether 

in  vocation  or  in  culture  itself.  It  must  precede 
lating  of  ^^^  accompany  each.  To  it  a  vocational  train- 
culture  to  ing  that  ignores  the  common  culture,  and  a  cul- 
vocation  tural  training  which  displaces  it,  are  equally 
democracy!    l^^stile.     Dr.   Gilbert  has  performed  important 

public  service  in  pointing  out  again  and  again 
the  menace  to  American  institutions  which  lies  in  a  special!- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  143 

zation  in  elementary  education  that  prevents  this  common 
culture.^^  So  has  Professor  Hanus,  who,  with  all  of  his 
championship  of  vocational  courses  in  high  schools,  insists 
that  they  shall  be  given  in  the  same  building  and  center  about 
a  common  arts  and  science  course7^ 


6.  A  General  Culture  Related  to  Vocation  Should  Parallel  All 
Vocational  Specialization,  and  Direct  Preparation,  All 
Specialization  in  Culture 

The  most  critical  situation  lies  in  the  higher  education  with 
its  specialization  in  culture  versus  specialization  in  vocation. 
If  the  vocational  specialist  is  insistent  upon  cul- 
ture  at  all,  it  is  that  it  must  precede  rather  than  ture  and 
accompany  specialization.  A  four-year  college  specializa- 
course,  for  example,  is  required  for  entrance  to  contin^tT 
the  stronger  colleges  of  law  or  of  medicine. 
Finance  and  commerce  show  a  better  tendency  in  insisting 
upon  the  paralleling  of  technical  courses  with  liberal  study.^^ 
Indeed,  the  practice  of  certain  universities  in  allowing  a 
certain  amount  of  professional  specialization  within  the  arts 
and  science  course  itself,  gives  the  lead  that  points  to  the 
solution  of  the  problem.  Just  as  certainly  as  culture  is  a 
growth,  should  specialization  be  a  slow  development  through- 
out a  long  term  of  years.  Continuity  is  favorable  to  each. 
Through  it  habits  and  attitudes  of  mind  are  made  certain, 
one  being  added  to  another  until  a  sure  system  of  ideas  and 
activities  results.  Four  years  of  pure  arts  and  science  work 
may  create  a  distaste  for  vocation,  while  four  years  of  exclu- 
sively technical  work  may  mean  arrested  development  if 
not  atrophy  in  culture.  The  assumption  that  the  cultural 
and  the  vocational  are  mutually  exclusive  in  education  is 
absurd.  If  they  cannot  co-exist  in  education,  how  can  they 
co-exist  in  life  itself,  of  which  education,  after  all,  is  but  a  part. 
The  real  antagonism  is  between  a  culture  remote  from  life, 
which  despises  work,  and  a  vocational  training  which  has  no 
time  for  culture.     Culture,  like  every  other  phase  of  direct 


144  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

preparation  for  life,  should  at  each  stage  of  education  parallel 
specialization  and  be  paralleled  by  it. 

Even  after  the  common  culture  has  been  attained,  special- 
ization in  culture  must  not  be  hostile  either  to  it  or  to  any 
other  phase  of  direct  preparation.  Direct  prep- 
aration'also  ^^^tion  demands  continuity  as  persistent  as 
demands  that  demanded  by  culture  and  specialization, 
continuity  ^^^  g^  must  parallel  specialization  in  culture 
and  must  ^   .   i  i       i         i  ,     ,. 

parallel  all     ^s  certamly  as  both  culture  and  direct  prepara- 

specializa-  tion  must  parallel  specialization  in  vocation.  The 
toe.*^  ^^^"  graduate  school  or  the  college  which  specializes  in 
culture  should  and  vnil  create  the  love  for  pure 
science,  whose  sacred  vocation  it  will  be  to  pass  on  and  to 
advance  the  learning  which  it  inherits;  it  can,  but  it  must 
not,  produce  the  pedant.  It  should  and  will  produce  a 
love  of  what  is  beautiful  in  nature  and  mankind;  it  can, 
but  must  not,  produce  a  sensuaHst  or  voluptuary.  It 
should  and  will  produce  a  more  spiritual  citizenship;  it 
can,  but  it  must  not,  produce  the  man  without  a  country 
who  withdraws  himself  "from  the  madness  of  the  multi- 
tude," because  "there  is  no  one  who  ever  acts  honestly  in 
the  administration  of  the  state,  nor  any  helper  who  will  save 
any  one  who  maintains  the  cause  of  the  just." 

7.  The  Obstacle  to  Common  and  Democratic  Culture  Which 

Lies  in  the  Attempt  to  Develop  Artistic  Expression  at  the 

Expense  of  Aesthetic  Appreciation 

Now  that  the  great  mass  of  individuals  have  a  constantly 

increasing  amount  of  leisure  and  rapidly  multiplying  means 

for  its  cultured  enjoyment,  perhaps  the  most  serious  obstacle 

to  a  democratic  and  common  culture  lies  in  insistence  upon 

specific  phases  of  culture  that  are  democratic  in  the  sense 

of  being  accessible  to  all,  but  imdemocratic  because   all 

have  not  the  capacity  to  attain  them.     This,  of  course,  does 

not  apply  to  many-sidedness  in  general,  but  to  its  aesthetic 

manifestations.     Nor  does  it  apply  to  the  unfortunate  limit 

to  aesthetic  appreciation  imposed  by  such  physical  or  mental 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  145 

defects  as  color-blindness  or  inability  to  discriminate  the 
ordinary  gradations  in  musical  sound.  It  rather  consists  in 
substituting  for  the  development  of  an  aesthetic  appreciation 
possible  to  all  normally  constituted  human  beings  the  vain 
attempt  to  develop  in  all  the  artistic  expression  possible  only 
to  the  few.  The  limit  to  effort  to  develop  expression  through 
the  fine  arts  lies  in  interference  with  the  development  of 
aesthetic  appreciation.  Artistic  expression  is  a  form  of 
specialization  more  unessential  to  general  culture  than  are 
mathematics  and  the  foreign  languages  to  general  discipline. 
It  is  possible  to  the  many  only  in  the  form  of  r^^  ^j^^^^q 
loving  familiarity  with  the  art  of  the  master  who  promotion 
interprets  for  all  what  he  alone  can  express.  That  <iependent 
is,  it  can  be  a  part  of  a  common  culture  only  in  artistic  skill 
the  sense  of  an  aesthetic  appreciation  which  may  doubly  un- 
in  itself  be  a  truer  and  a  deeper  self-expression  ^^^^^^ratic. 
than  is  possible  to  the  mass  of  us  through  artistic  training. 
It  is  a  double  menace  to  democracy  itself  when  the  pro- 
motion of  pupils  to  a  higher  grade  in  the  public  school  sys- 
tem or  admission  to  college  is  dependent  upon  either  some 
form  of  artistic  expression,  which  excludes  many  as  incapable, 
or  of  a  crude  artistic  appreciation  which  may  be  developed  at 
the  expense  of  aesthetic  enjoyment.  It  is  undemocratic  in 
preventing  pupils  from  being  advanced  for  the  sake  of  what 
can  be  left  for  the  specialist  without  prejudice  to  culture. 
It  is  undemocratic  in  excluding  or  limiting  the  common  cul- 
ture possible  to  all.  In  the  elementary  school  a  saving  com- 
mon sense  has  prevented  the  requirement  of  such  forms  of 
artistic  self  expression  as  drawing,  music,  and  literary  com- 
position as  conditional  to  promotion.  They  are  customarily 
not  regarded  as  "grading  subjects,"  and  pupils  proficient  in 
other  branches  are  advanced  regardless  of  their  success  or 
failure  in  them.  They  are  undemocratic  only  in  devoting 
to  a  hopeless  effort  to  develop  a  common  artistic  expression, 
the  time  that  can  be  successfully  used  for  the  development  of 
a  common  aesthetic  appreciation. 

In  the  secondary  school,  however,  the  required  work  in 
10 


146  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

English  fixed  by  uniform  college  entrance  requirements  has 
been  emphasizing  the  analytic  study  of  a  few  masterpieces 
of  literature  with  a  view  to  comprehension  of  literary  tech- 
nique and  the  development  of  artistic  criticism.  Granting 
that  it  is  within  the  capacity  of  the  majority  of  pupils,  it  is, 
if  not  an  unessential  phase  of  culture,  a  barren  substitute  for 
the  aesthetic  appreciation  from  which  it  is  distinct  and  to 
which  it  is  more  or  less  antagonistic.  If  one  or  the  other  is  to 
be  sacrificed,  it  is  guidance  in  the  reading  of  literature  in  all 
of  its  many-sidedness  that  should  be  required,  and  the  inten- 
sive and  technical  study  of  specific  writers  that  should  be 
omitted  or  left  to  specialization.  While  the  saner  attitude 
of  certain  colleges  and  universities  in  making  their  only 
requirement  for  admission  facility  in  the  use  of  written 
English,  if  it  does  not  involve  more  than  simple  and  grammat- 
ical composition,  is  a  step  toward  democracy  in  the  sense  of 
accessibility  of  the  upper  high  school  grades  and  the  college 
to  all  pupils,  it  is  a  step  away  from  democracy  in  the  sense 
Democracy  ^^  ^  common  culture.  The  broad  reading  of 
demands  good  literature  should  be  required,  with  due 
grammat-  regard  to  individual  tendencies  and  capacities, 
anda^com-  ^^-  Harris  had  in  mind  not  only  democracy 
mon  love  of  from  the  standpoint  of  accessibility,  but  also 
good  htera-  from  the  necessity  for  this  common  culture,  when 

in  1894  he  urged  that  the  raising  of  the  standard 
of  admission  to  college  was  a  "national  disaster  in  education'' 
which  would  prevent  the  leaders  who  mold  public  action, 
especially  "the  poets  and  literary  men,"  from  entering  college 
through  the  public  school  ."^^ 

As  in  the  case  of  music  and  of  art,  the  main  criticism  that 
can  be  made  of  the  present  requirements  of  the  elementary 

school  course  in  literature  is  that  the  time  vainly 
Discovery  devoted  to  artistic  expression  can  be  more  profit- 
practicable  2,bly  given  to  aesthetic  appreciation.  Ordinary 
through  the  work  in  English  composition,  the  mechanical 
workessen-  ^^^^ing  possible  and  useful  to  all,  concert  sing- 
tial  for  all.     ing  which   does  not  involve  reading  by  note, 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  147 

though  included  in  the  course  of  study  on  other  than  cul- 
tural grounds,  afford  ample  opportunity  for  the  discovery 
of  individuals  capable  of  specialization  in  the  fine  arts.  From 
the  earhest  years  of  the  public  school  course  provision  for 
such  specialization  should  be  made,  not  alone  through  the 
schools  of  design  and  industrial  art  already  provided  in  the 
great  cities,  but  where  specialized  instruction  in  elocution, 
instrumental  and  vocal  music,  drawing,  painting,  and  sculp- 
ture, cannot  be  given  as  an  integral  phase  of  public  school 
instruction,  through  public  scholarships  in  private  institutions 
and  the  formal  recognition  of  such  private  instruction  as  part 
of  the  regular  work  of  the  school.  In  the  great  cities  schol- 
arships have  already  become  common,  but  the  recognition 
by  the  high  school  in  Berkeley,  California,  and  Chelsea, 
Massachusetts,  of  private  instruction  in  music  whose  quality 
has  been  approved  by  school  authority  as  one  of  the  units 
necessary  to  graduation,  is  a  pioneer  step  toward  the  encour- 
agment  of  a  specialization  in  art  that  in  no  wise  need  inter- 
fere with  school  work  essential  to  all.^^  Where  specializa- 
tion cannot  be  carried  on  within  the  school,  the  least  that  the 
school  can  do  is  to  prevent  overwork  by  substituting  it  for 
some  optional  or  elective  subject  which  the  school  provides. 
In  the  majority  of  high  schools  outside  the  cities  this  will 
become  practicable  only  through  consolidation  brought 
about  through  the  co-operation  of  neighboring  districts,  now 
generally  permitted  by  state  law.  In  the  elementary  school 
it  will  be  a  part  of  the  modified  course  of  study  that  scientific 
research  and  enlightened  public  opinion  will  soon  compel. 

8.  The  Rapid  Multiplication  of  Means  Through  Which  a  Com- 
mon Aesthetic  Appreciation  can  be  Readily  Developed 
For  these  necessary  readjustments  the  training  of  aesthetic 
appreciation  need  not  wait.  The  development  of  a  sense  of 
appreciation  for  the  beautiful  in  painting  and  sculpture, 
personal  dress,  home  decoration,  and  architecture  can  well 
take  most  of  the  time  hopelessly  devoted  to  self-expression 
through  brush  and  pencil.     Already  marvellously  well  done 


148  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

in  such  schools  as  the  William  Penn  High  School  for  Girls 
in  Philadelphia,  and  the  Trade  Schools  for  Girls  in  Boston 

and  New  York  City,  such  training  as  a  means  to 
More  gen-  happiness  is  an  inalienable  right  of  every  child  in 
thetic  ap-  the  republic.  It  is  such  instruction,  and  not  draw- 
preciation,  ing,  as  urged  by  Dr.  Harris  in  an  address  before 
abmty  to^"  ^^^  National  Education  Association  in  1889,  that 
draw,  es-  is  the  essential  condition  to  artistic  production  by 
sential  to  American  industries.^^  There  is  an  ample  supply 
production.    ^^  designers  who  can  produce   artistic  as  well 

as  inartistic  designs,  the  same  skill  in  drawing 
being  necessary  to  each.  Indeed,  in  the  more  expensive 
products  artistic  designs  are  abundant.  They  have  been 
largely  lacking  in  the  cheaper  articles  because  there  is  little 
demand  for  them.  Glaring  color  combinations,  inartistic 
lamps  and  vases,  gaudy  dress  goods,  and  impossible  chromos 
are  made — like  the  razors  immortalized  in  Goldsmith's 
verse, — ^because  they  are  easy  "to  sell."  It  is  not  instruction 
in  drawing,  but  the  development  of  a  truer  sense  of  aesthetic 
appreciation  in  the  masses,  that  will  ultimately  raise  the 
artistic  standards  of  American  industry. 

Artistic  material  for  such  instruction  is  abundant.  Repro- 
ductions of  masterpieces  of  painting  and  sculpture,  illustra- 
tions in  the  standard  periodicals,  stereographs,  delicately 
tinted  tissue  papers  for  color  combination  in  neckties,  dress 
designing  and  hat  trimming,  specimens  of  ornaments,  uten- 
sils and  furnishings  having  the  right  lines  and  coloring,  all  are 
easily  obtainable.  Traveling  and  loan  collections,  together 
with  co-operation  from  local  artists,  collectors,  and  manufac- 
turers, can  greatly  facilitate  the  work.  To  crown  all,  the 
school  must  use  the  moving  picture  machine  as  a  means  to 
the  reproduction  of  what  is  most  beautiful  in  motion,  whether 
in  nature,  the  drama,  or  every-day  life.  Architecture  in  a 
natural  and  human  setting  that  makes  it  a  thing  alive,  waves 
breaking  upon  a  far-off  shore,  a  mountain  covered  with  a 
forest  of  rustling  leaves,  a  minaretted  mosque  with  its  white- 
robed  worshippers,  a  scene  from  Rip  Van  Winkle  or  Oberam- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  149 

mergau,  unite  to  make  it  a  veritable  kaleidoscope  of  art. 
When,  for  the  love  of  amusement  and  art,  the  very  nation  is 
beginning  to  go  to  school,  the  school  through  formal  instruc- 
tion should  play  its  part. 

While  all  this  is  true  in  the  field  of  form  and  color,  it  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  in  the  field  of  music  the  phonograph 
and  the  pianola  are  doing  all  that  the  printing- 
press  has  done  for  literature.     When  all  forms  of  music  inde- 
music  are  more  accessible  to  every  individual  and  pendent  of 
to  every  home  than  literature  itself,  is  it  not  time  for  ^^^^    ^  ^^ 
the  school  to  add  to  the  rote-work  which  teaches 
mediocre  singers  how  to  read  by  note  the  development  of  a  love 
for  what  has  become  immortal  in  music  and  in  song?    Reading 
by  note  is  merely  a  favorable  condition  to  singing,  not  neces- 
sarily to  good  singing,  but  to  any  kind  of  singing,  especially 
to  part  singing  in  chorus.    It  encourages  a  form  of  avocation 
which  may  or  may  not  be  cultural,  but  which  gives  physical 
pleasure  to  an  individual  or  a  group  and  aesthetic  enjoyment 
if  not  to  an  open- windowed  neighborhood,  at  least  to  an  ap- 
preciative home.     My  voice  or  my  piano  playing  may  be  a 
"poor  thing,  but  it  is  my  own."    The  French  critic,  who  not 
long  ago  protested  against  instrumental  music  ^^^^  medi- 
in  the  public  schools  on  the  ground  of  the  dis-   ocre  sing- 
comfort  which  the  music  of  the  ordinary  home  i^^s  useful 
gives  to  cultured  ears  which  happen  to  be  within  tion^and^" 
hearing,  ignores  the  refining  influence  which  even  the  devel- 
such  music  has  upon  ordinary  family  life,  and  the  op^^nt  of 
wholesome  and  happy  avocation  which  it  affords 
to  the  singer  or  performer  himself.     It  is  good  for  the  village 
blacksmith  to  hear  his  daughter's  voice  and  it  is  good  for  the 
daughter  to  sing.     It  is  a  phase  of  avocation  quite  distinct 
from  culture,  but,  far  from  being  a  menace  to  it,  may  aid  in 
developing  it.     We  are  happily  unconscious  of  our  own  aes- 
thetic lacks  on  the  side  of  expression,  and  do  not  hear  our- 
selves as  others  hear  us,  any  more  than  we  can  "see  ourselves  as 
others  see  us."     Our  interest  in  our  own  poor  music,  however, 
may  be  the  step  by  which  we  rise  to  a  love  of  truer  melody. 


ISO  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

On  the  other  hand,  the  very  effort  to  attain  a  higher  musical 
level  may  be  made  at  the  expense  of  avocation  in  the  home, 
if  it  takes  the  form  of  the  cultivation  of  artistic 
wtistic*skiU  expression  in  place  of  a  gradual  refinement  of 
may  be  de-  aesthetic  taste.  Where  practice  is  substituted  for 
velopedat  the  performance  which  helped  make  home  life 
of  avoc^a^tion.  enjoyable,  specialization,  even  though  purely 
artistic  and  the  vestibule  to  culture  and  social 
popularity,  may  be  bought  too  dear.  Singing  by  note,  how- 
ever artistic  the  specialization  to  which  it  occasionally  may 
lead,  must  not  interfere  with  or  exclude  the  training  which  is 
intended  to  develop  a  true  musical  taste.  Bad  music  is  the 
most  contagious  of  aesthetic  diseases.  We  may  not  read  at 
all;  we  may  be  blind  to  painting  and  to  sculpture,  good  and 
bad  alike,  but  we  are  bound  to  hum  or  whistle  the  newest  song. 
Ragtime  drifts  into  the  singing  book  of  the  Sunday-school. 
It  has  taken  the  wise  censorship  of  the  pope  himself  to  pre- 
serve the  nobility  and  the  dignity  of  the  music  of  the  church. 

Into  this  dead  level  of  mediocrity  and  degeneration  comes 
the  Melba  or  Caruso  record,  oratorios,  symphony,  and  grand 
opera;  folk  song  and  ballad  are  brought  to  the  home  that 
otherwise  would  hear  the  music  of  the  street  or  the  variety 
show.  Ready  to  murder  some  thing  of  beauty,  tempted  by 
the  allurement  of  some  sensuous  song,  we  have  heard  Pippa 
sing. 

The  school  must  utilize  and  direct  this  new  force  in  edu- 
cation. In  Dayton,  Ohio,  for  several  years  phonographs  have 
The  phono-  ^^^^  ^^  Successful  use  in  the  schools,  the  records 
graph  ef-  that  are  purchased  or  borrowed  first  being  ap- 
ifciiyeioT  proved  by  the  school  authorities.  The  manu- 
opment  of  facturers  themselves  have  recently  taken  up  the 
musical  matter,  and  employed  an  expert  supervisor  of 
taste.  school  music  to  plan  ways  and  means  of  intro- 

ducing phonographs  into  the  schools.  There  is  no  reason 
why  public  school  children,  who,  from  their  earliest  years  are 
familiar  with  what  is  most  beautiful  in  vocal  and  instrumental 
music,  should  not  gradually  come  to  see  the  crudities  and  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  151 

vulgarity  of  the  songs  that  now  tickle  the  popular  ear.  In 
1908,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Combe's  Conservatory  of 
Music,  the  children  in  each  grade  in  the  School  of  Observa- 
tion, conducted  by  the  Department  of  Pedagogy  in  the 
Summer  School  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  were 
taught  to  associate  the  name  of  composition  and  composer 
with  a  number  of  the  most  striking  and  characteristic  themes 
from  great  masterpieces.  Twelve  such  selections,  as  Ruben- 
stein's  Melody  in  F  and  the  Sextette  from  Lucia,  were  readily 
recognized  by  the  majority  of  the  pupils  after  the  presenta- 
tion of  one  or  two  of  them  five  or  ten  minutes  each  day  for  a 
period  of  six  weeks.  If  the  choicest  musical  compositions  are 
not  only  continuously  presented  through  school  and  college, 
but,  like  ideas,  are  given  the  better  chance  of  being  remem- 
bered and  recalled,  that  comes  with  fixed  association  with  a 
name;  if  such  instruction  is  supplemented  when  possible 
with  visits  to  musicals,  symphony  concerts,  oratorios,  and 
grand  opera,  or,  more  rarely,  the  visits  of  great  singers  or 
instrumentalists  to  the  schools;  if,  as  is  rapidly  coming  to  be 
the  case,  the  children  are  themselves  led  to  sing  the  ballads 
and  folk  songs  urged  by  Dr.  Hall,  national  airs,  and  all  else 
that  is  truest  and  best,  there  is  small  danger  that  rote  song 
and  mechanical  drill  can  make  music  uninteresting  or  that 
the  national  taste  will  become  or  remain  corrupt. 

In  higher  education  such  taste  should  be  made  more  crit- 
ical, or  at  least  more  intelligent,  through  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  music  and  of  art.     The  old  dominance 
of  the  intellectually  formal  is  responsible  for  the    ^g^f  of  the 
fact  that,  with  all  the  emphasis  given  in  the  col-    history  of 
lege    to    culture    through    literature,     culture    '^^sic  and 
through  music  and  art  is  not  required.  college. 

At  no  stage,  however,  must  instruction  forget 
the  distinction  between  a  common  aesthetic  appreciation  and 
a  specialized  artistic  expression,  or  even  artistic  appreciation 
in  the  sense  of  comprehension  of  musical  technique.  A  too 
highly  cultivated  taste  may  rob  one  of  much  of  the  joy  of 
living.    -Esthetic  appreciation  gives  pleasure  unalloyed,  but, 


152  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

like  every  other  emotion,  is  decreased  when  intellectual  judg- 
ment is  brought  to  bear  upon  it.  Indeed,  artistic  apprecia- 
tion not  only  involves  an  intellectual  activity  which  serves  as 
a  check  upon  aesthetic  enjoyment,  but,  being  in  itself  pleasur- 
able, produces  a  feeling  or  emotion  that  is  distinct  from  the 
aesthetic  and  tends  to  take  its  place.  The  "baseball  fan," 
so  familiar  with  technique  as  to  be  supersensitive  to  error,  is 
the  most  popular  example  of  artistic  appreciation  carried  too 
far.  The  man  who  understands  the  game  enough  to  know 
how  it  is  being  won  enjoys  himself  as  a  sportsman,  and  not 
through  a  form  of  appreciation  as  professional  as  the  play 
itself.  Artistic  appreciation  in  the  fine  arts,  reaching  its 
highest  development  in  artistic  criticism,  too  often  produces 
a  feeling  of  self-confidence  and  pride  little  likely  to  be 
aesthetic.  At  best,  it  is  a  phase  of  specialization  in  culture; 
at  its  worst,  it  is  too  technical  to  be  cultural  at  all. 

The  general  course  in  the  fine  arts  in  high  school  and  col- 
lege, whether  in  literature,  music,  painting,  or  sculpture, 
Definite-  ^^  ^^^^^^  likely  to  produce  art  critics.  It  should 
ness  makes  add,  however,  a  wealth  of  discriminations  and 
»sthetic  associations  to  the  earlier  and  simpler  aesthetic 
sysfe^matk,  pl^asure  which  every  student  should  have  come 
cumulative  to  possess  in  art.  Unlike  the  artistic  criticism 
and  endur-  -which,  being  immediate  upon  artistic  presenta- 
tion, is  likely  to  take  the  place  of  other  feeling, 
these  associations  follow  after  the  more  immediate  pleasures 
of  aesthetic  experience,  and  make  them  more  enduring  through 
mutual  relationships  in  the  common  culture  of  which  both 
feelings  and  associations  are  a  part. 

9.  Instruction  in  ^^sthetics  Should  Be  Separate  and  Distinct 
from  Other  Phases  of  Instruction  Which  Interfere  with  It 
Elementary  school  work  in  reading  and  literature  exempli- 
fies a  secondary  obstacle  to  aesthetic  appreciation,  closely 
allied  to  interference  through  specialization,  yet  distinct 
from  it — interference  through  other  phases  of  instruction. 
Mechanical  mastery  of  written  language,  comprehension  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  153 

the  thought  of  the  writer,  its  vocal  expression  through  oral 

reading  and  written  composition,  aesthetic  appreciation  of 

form  of  expression,  and  artistic  appreciation  due  ^^ 

I,        '  n     -u  4.     '     ^  :    -u    '  The  various 

to  a  comprehension  of  rhetorical  technique,  are  aims  of  lan- 

all  separate  and  distinct,  though  complementary  guage  work 
aims,  to  be  realized  through  separate  and  distinct  ^nfJcting. 
means  that  may  at  times  conflict.  Mechanical 
reading  and  writing,  comprehension  of  a  writer's  meaning, 
ability  to  grammatically  express  one's  own  in  ordinary  com- 
position, even  judgment  of  artistic  technique  must  be  re- 
quired of  all  pupils,  but  not  in  the  sense  of  exacting  a  common 
standard  for  all.  All  must  be  able  to  sound  out  any  word,  and, 
if  it  is  unfamiliar,  to  determine  its  meaning  from  the  diction- 
ary; all  must  be  able  to  write  any  word  with  some  degree  of 
legibility  and  readiness;  all  must  be  trained  to  avoid  the  com- 
mon errors  of  colloquial  speech,  and  to  at  least  identify  the 
figures  of  speech  and  other  forms  of  language  which  charac- 
terize a  writer's  style.  But  some  pupils  can  never  be  skilled 
penmen;  others  will  never  read  aloud  in  a  way  that  will  give 
pleasure  to  others;  while  educational  experimentation  and 
research  have  not  yet  determined  whether  the  mass  of  Ameri- 
can children  living  in  an  ungrammatical  environment  can 
be  made  grammatical  through  such  persistent  repetition 
as  is  possible  in  school  of  correct  forms  alternative  to  com- 
mon blunders  in  speech. 

Artistic  and  literary  self-expression,  whether  in  the  form 
of  public  reading  and  declamation,  or  of  composition  other 
than  the  emotional  forms  essential  to  all,  belongs  to  spe- 
cialization. The  attempt  to  develop  it  must  neither  be  re- 
quired of  all,  nor  carried  so  far  with  any  but  the  specialist, 
as  to  sacrifice  appreciation. 

On  the  other  hand,  all  pupils  can  be  taught  to  appreciate 
good  literature  aesthetically  if  it  is  impressively  presented  in 
sufficient  variety,  and  other  essential  phases  of  language  work 
are  not  allowed  to  conflict  with  it.  The  earliest  obstacle  to 
its  development  lies  in  failure  to  present  the  masterpieces 
of  literature  in  the  elementary  school  with  sufficient  elocu- 


154  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

tionary  or  dramatic  effect  for  them  to  be  enjoyed.  It  is  a 
The  first  question  whether  any  literary  masterpiece  can 
presenta-  be  read  and  re-read  around  the  class  by  pupils 
tion  of  a  deficient,  not  only  in  the  vocal  training  neces- 
master-  ^^^^  ^^  pleasurable  self-expression,  but  in  the 
piece  very  mechanics  of  reading,  without  a  feeling  of 

should  be      distaste  being  engendered  which  is  hostile  to  the 

development  of  appreciation  of  literary  form, 
even  where  the  subject  matter  is  understood  and  presented 
with  sufficient  continuity  to  have  interest  through  its  mean- 
ing. It  is  at  least  safe  to  say  that  the  impressive  reading  of 
masterpieces  to  the  children  by  either  the  teacher  or  one 
especially  well  qualified  to  read  them  sympathetically  and 
expressively  can  and  should  precede  and  parallel  mechanical 
drill;  that,  where  masterpieces  are  to  be  drilled  upon,  they 
should  first  be  so  presented;  that  much  which  is  beautiful 
should  be  read  to  the  children  before  they  can  sympathetically 
read  it  for  themselves,  and  that  much  shall  be  so  read  which 
they  will  neither  be  called  upon  to  read  nor  to  write  about. 
The  effective  work  now  being  accomplished  by  the  Junior 
Drama  League  under  the  inspiring  lead  of  Miss  Patton,  to- 
gether with  the  increasing  popularity  of  ^^dramatization"  in 
the  ordinary  reading  work  of  the  elementary  school,  is  tend- 
ing to  the  same  end. 

A  second  obstacle  to  the  development  of  aesthetic  appreci- 
ation lies  in  a  juvenilizing  of  literature  which  robs  it  of  its 

literary  form  in  order  that  it  shall  be  fully  com- 

nilfz/ng  of     prehended.     The   objection  is  not  against   the 

literature       writing  'Of  books  for  children,  which  often  have  a 

hinders  literary  charm  of  their  own,  but  against  the  re- 

SBSthetic  ap- 

preciation.      writing  of  masterpieces  in  language  so  modified 

that  children  can  understand,  with  a  consequent 
loss  of  literary  form.  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  took  the  plot 
of  a  play  and  gave  it  literary  form  for  children,  just  as  Shake- 
speare put  it  into  dramatic  form  for  all.  To  read  the  plot  of 
a  play  not  only  does  not  detract  from  it,  but  results  in  a  clearer 
comprehension  of  the  part  played  by  each  character.     But  to 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  155 

take  literary  masterpieces,  in  which  the  interest  lies  both  in 
the  interplay  of  characters  and  in  the  gradual  development  of 
the  story  as  a  whole,  and  through  their  simplification  to  rob 
the  characters  of  the  artistic  details  which  make  them  alive, 
and  to  substitute  the  style  of  the  school  text-book  for  that 
which  has  made  a  great  writer  immortal,  is  to  give  full  com- 
prehension at  too  high  a  price.  The  interest  in  the  adapted 
subject  matter  is  often  gained  by  a  loss  of  future  interest  in 

its  original.     While,  even  from  the  standpoint  of   _ 

1.        •  r  n  T_        •  4.T-  1-    •        Juvenihzing 

comprehension,  full  comprehension,  through  ju-  checks  the 

venilization,  prevents  the  steady  growth  to  develop- 
intellectual  maturity  that  is  furthered  through  ^cabulary. 
the  partial  mastery  of  a  multitude  of  new  terms, 
held  in  mind  through  interest  in  a  great  story,  to  whose  com- 
prehension as  a  whole  they  are  non-essential,  but  in  whose 
fuller  comprehension  even  their  partial  understanding  plays 
a  necessary  part,  ^sthetically  regarded,  they  are  the  over- 
tones of  literature.  If  children  are  to  hear  the  masterpiece 
at  all,  it  should  be  on  the  violincello  or  the  grand  piano,  not 
on  the  penny  pipe.  Even  if  the  harmonies  of  expression 
which  constitute  literary  style  were  harmonies  of  sound  alone, 
the  children  who  constantly  hear  them  develop  an  apprecia- 
tive and  discriminating  ear  for  beauty  in  language,  as  Pe- 
trarch came  to  love  the  sonorous  cadence  of  the  Greek  which 
as  yet  he  could  not  understand. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  most  certain  way  of 
amplifying  vocabulary  for  children,  as  for  the  more  mature, 
is  by  much  reading,  limited  neither  by  ability  in  spelling  nor 
ability  to  fully  comprehend.  This  was  the  lesson  taught  in 
the  discussion  of  mere  remembrance  as  a  means  to  apper- 
ception. 

Matthew  Arnold,  who,  more  than  any  other,  is  responsible 
for  the  introduction  of  good  literature  into  the  elementary 
school,  is  primarily  responsible  for  another  phase  of  work 
hostile  to  culture — the  concentration  upon  masterpieces 
as  wholes  which  has  become  so  common  in  the  grammar 
grades.     It   is  easy  to   sympathize    with    his    impatience 


156  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

over  young  Philistines  who  referred  to  Shakespeare  as  the 

writer  of  the  judgment  scene  in  the  Merchant  of  Venice,  but 

Intensive       ^^^  remedy  does  not  lie  in  giving  half  a  school  year 

study  of         to  the  Merchant  of  Venice  or  the  Courtship  of 

master-         Miles  Standish  to  the  exclusion  of  dozens  of  in- 

pieces  as  .  . 

wholes  can    terestmg  and  representative  extracts  from  great 

be  hostile  writers  otherwise  not  represented  in  class  work, 
to  cu  ture.  ^^^  rather  in  encouraging  or  requiring  pupils  to 
follow  up  class  work  by  individually  reading  as  wholes  the 
masterpieces  whose  parts  interested  them  most.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Arnold  himself  strongly  recommended  the  reading  of  a  variety 
of  shorter  poems  in  preferance  to  a  lengthy  masterpiece.*^^ 
The  many-sidedness  necessary  to  culture  must  still  be  brought 
about  for  the  majority  of  Americans,  if  brought  about  at  all, 
in  the  elementary  school.  In  music  and  the  other  ^e  arts, 
as  well  as  in  literature,  continual  and  impressive  presentation 
of  what  is  most  beautiful,  not  in  the  work  of  some  one,  but  of 
all  the  masters,  should  be  made  at  the  stage  of  aesthetic 
development  to  which  they  are  best  adapted,  both  for  the 
sake  of  many-sidedness  and  the  encouragement  of  selection 
through  individual  interest,  without  which  individual  many- 
sidedness  is  impossible. 

10.  Both  Direct  Preparation  and  General  Discipline,  Being 
Conditioned  hy   Emotional  Form  of  Expression,  Must 
Include  a  Part  of  the  Content  Most  Useftd  for  Culture 
What  makes  adequate  emphasis  of  the  aesthetic  phase  of 
culture  more  readily  possible  through  the  public  school  sys- 
tem is  not  only  the  fact  that  much  cultural  material  can  be 
related  to  other  phases  of  direct  preparation  for  life  without 
menace  to  culture,  but  that,  as  already  demonstrated,  effect- 
ive furtherance  of  both  direct  preparation  and  general  dis- 
cipline demands  far  greater  emphasis  than  is  now  being  given 
in  the  school  to  the  emotional  form  of  expression  possible 
only  through  literature,  music,  and  art.     This  means  some- 
thing more  than  the  occasional  inclusion  of  culture  in  various 
other  phases  of  direct  preparation.     It  is  true  that  to  love 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  157 

mountains,  seas,  woods,  and  flowers,  or  the  masterpieces  of 
art  and  literature  which  a  nation  has  produced,  is  an  essential 
part  of  love  of  country,  just  as  the  artistic  affectation  which 
depreciates  American  art  and  slavishly  imitates  foreign 
modes  is  a  weak  form  of  treason.  Similarly,  the  love  of  the 
beautiful  in  nature  and  of  the  good  in  art  strengthens  our 
love  of  the  divine  as  surely  as  enjoyment  of  a  realism  that 
sings  or  paints  the  beauty  of  what  is  sensuous  and  base  un- 
consciously unveils  a  soul  that  is  partly  lost.  But  if  life's 
aims  are  to  be  fully  realized,  if  the  emotional  centers  necessary 
to  useful  discipline  are  to  be  developed,  instruc-  j^jg  ^^ 
tion  must  not  only  welcome  these  indirect  contri-    arts  must 

butions  of  culture,  but  must  directly  utilize  all  of    ^^^^^^^  ^^' 

,    -     '  -^  .     .  rect  prepa- 

its  emotional  forms  as  a  means  to  cumulative    ration  and 

impression.     What  inspiration  must  have  come    general 

to  the  Greek  boy  as  his  religious  faith,  his  national      ^^^^^    ®' 

ideals,  the  standards  of  his  social  life,  were  taught  him  not 

through  the  adjurations  of  pedagogue  or  harp-master,  but 

with  the  melody  and  power  of  ringing  Homeric  verse.     "And 

when  the  boy  has  learned  his  letters,  and  is  beginning  to 

-understand  what  is  written,  as  before  he  understood  only 

what  was  spoken,  they  put  into  his  hands  the  works  of  great 

poets,  which  he  reads  at  school;  in  these  are  contained  many 

admonitions,  and  many  tales  and  praises  and  encomiums  of 

ancient  famous  men,  which  he  is  required  to  learn  by  heart,  in 

order  that  he  may  imitate  or  emulate  them  and  desire  to 

become  like  them.     And,  when  they  have  taught  him  the  use 

of  the  lyre,  they  introduce  him  to  the  poems  of  other  excellent 

poets,  who  are  the  lyric  poets;  and  these  they  set  to  music,  and 

make  their  harmonies  and  rhythms  quite  familiar  to  the 

children's  souls,  in  order  that  they  may  learn  to  be  more 

gentle  and  harmonious  and  rhythmical,  and  so  more  fitted  for 

speech  and  action;  for  the  life  of  man  in  every  part  has  need 

of  harmony  and  rhythm.  "^^    Reverence  for  God  cannot  be 

adequately  taught  from  catechisms,  or  love  of  country  from 

dry-as-dust  text-books.     A  longing  for  social  service  will  not 

spring  from  the  most  convincing   statistics,  or  the  joy  of 


158  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

labor  from  discourses  on  morals  and  economics.  Definite- 
ness  of  creed  requires  the  formal  statement  of  divine  attri- 
butes and  patriotism,  of  the  doctrine  of  equal .  rights,  as 
general  discipline  demands  the  certain  formulation  of  any 
other  potent  idea.  But.it  is  the  poems  of  saints  and  of 
patriots,  the  rhapsodies  of  the  prophets  and  orations  of  states- 
men, the  eloquent  descriptions  of  mighty  deeds,  ballads, 
and  oratorios,  dramas  and  paintings,  statues  and  cathedral 
spires,  the  aesthetic  inheritance  of  the  race,  that  form  the  man 
of  spirit  and  inspire  him  to  speech  and  to  action.  It  is  not 
through  mere  exercises  in  elocution,  or  the  committing  to 
memory  of  gems  of  literature,  but  in  the  association  with  the 
most  useful  ideas  of  the  common  feeling  which  springs  from 
a  cumulative  mass  of  emotional  material,  that  culture  must 
be  brought  to  bear.  The  most  spiritual  culture  is  not  found 
in  aesthetic  leisure,  but  in  the  emotional  furtherance  of  all 
that  is  noblest  and  truest  in  life. 

II.  Culture  Not  Only  Included  in  Direct  Preparation ,  hut 
Dependent  Upon  It 
On  its  aesthetic  side,  then,  as  well  as  in  its  many-sidedness, 
culture  has  much  in  common  with  every  other  phase  of  direct 

P^^P^^^tion.  The  many-sidedness  which  fur- 
involves  all  thers  them  furthers  it,  and  many  of  the  relation- 
phases  of  ships  peculiar  to  it  are  helpful  to  them.  This 
aration^^^^"  identity  of  subject  matter  is  even  more  apparent 

when  it  is  analyzed  from  the  standpoint  of  formal 
self-activity.  Culture  does  not  merely  consist  of  an  attitude 
of  mind — the  cumulative  impressions  of  a  college  course. 
While  aesthetic  judgments  and  experiences  are  largely  emo- 
tional, culture,  in  the  broad  sense,  also  includes  m.ere  remem- 
brance, varying  apperception,  and  specific  and  general  dis- 
cipline. And  whether  it  is  a  steadily  decreasing  factor  in  in- 
dividual life,  or  becoiAes  a  dominating  force,  depends  upon  the 
extent  to  which  its  fundamental  relationships  are  made  cer- 
tain and  permanent,  and  become  the  centers  for  constantly 
varying   association   and   application.     True   culture   is   a 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  159 

growth,  not  a  vague  but  lingering  recollection  of  the  beautiful, 
and  demands  not  appreciation  only,  but  imagination  and 
reflection.  There  is  only  partial  justification  for  the  old 
saying  that  there  are  certain  things  in  education  which  a 
gentleman  must  have  forgotten — a  quip  that  possibly  has  its 
origin  in  the  medieval  distinction  which  led  Montaigne's 
two  travelers  to  insist  that  they  were  grammarian  and  logi- 
cian. It  was  the  scholar,  and  not  the  gentleman,  who  found 
it  necessary  to  remember.  The  gentleman  could  forget  his 
Greek  and  Latin  after  they  had  opened  the  door  to  a  litera- 
ture whose  impressions  would  always  linger  in  the  heart  and 
soul. 

But  modern  culture  at  least  includes  definite  and  specific 
relationships  which  must  continue  to  be  held  in  mind,  from 
grammatical  speech — its  first  prerequisite  on  the  social  side — 
and  certainty  of  information  concerning  not  only  individual 
masterpieces,  but  the  fine  arts,  to  the  subtle  distinctions  and 
fixed  tenets  essential  to  aesthetic  specialization. 

Useful  imagination,  even  though  aesthetic,  and  reflection, 
though  confined  to  the  beautiful,  are  impossible  without  both 
the  fixed  relationships,  which  constitute  a  specific   culture  de- 
sesthetic  discipline,  and  those  which  are  included  mands  the 
among  the  conditions  favorable  to  its  general   continuity 
application.     An  interrelation  with  other  phases  through 
of  direct  preparation  is,  therefore,  desirable  for  relationship 
culture,  for  the  sake  of  remembrance  and  contin-  *°     ®* 
uity  as  well  as  of  completeness  of  representation.     The  more 
culture  is  interrelated  with  direct  preparation,  the  more  com- 
plete and  more  enduring  it  will  be,  the  more  it  will  tend  to 
dominate  sensibility  and  action,  both  through  common  recur- 
rence with  what  is  itself  most  certain  and  enduring,  and 
through  the  greater  many-sidedness  and  surer  general  disci- 
pline to  which  definiteness  and  certainty  are  essential.     It 
of  necessity  follows  that  the  emphasis  of  direct  preparation 
in  the  course  of  study  found  favorable  to  general  discipline  is 
also  favorable  to  culture. 


l6o  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

12.  The  Sttcdy  of  Greek  and  Latin  y  Even  from  a  Purely  Cultural 
Viewpoint,  Belongs  to  Specialization  Rather  than  to 
General  Education 

It  must  be  granted  that  just  as  mathematics  and  the 
languages  possess  an  advantage  from  the  standpoint  of  specific 
Classical  discipline  through  the  fact  that  their  pecuHar 
culture  form  of  organization  compels  it,  so  the  Greek 

made  most    ^^^^  ^^^  Latin  possess  the  advantage  from  the 

ceiieral 

and  useful  standpoint  of  culture,  that  they  cannot  be  mas- 
through  tered — at  least  in  their  more  advanced  stages — 
translation,  without  certainty  of  contact  on  the  part  of  the 
student  with  the  noblest  forms  of  literature  and  art.  Op- 
posed to  this  is  the  failure  of  the  great  mass  of  Greek  or  Latin 
students  to  reach  the  cultural  stage  of  study,  the  immense 
amount  of  time  expended  by  those  who  do,  and  insistence  by 
certain  specialists  upon  the  reading  of  artistic  passages  flag- 
rant in  the  paganism  and  immorality  dreaded  by  the  early 
church  fathers.  The  useful  part  of  the  classical  content  can 
be  made  just  as  certain  of  mastery,  and  far  more  accessible, 
without  the  study  of  the  classical  languages;  while  such  parts 
of  it  as  are  pagan  and  immoral  need  not  be  included  in  the 
education  of  youth  through  contemptuous  insistence  upon  an 
artistic  whole.  The  contribution  of  Greece  and  Rome  to 
universal  culture  will  perform  an  increasingly  important  ser- 
vice in  education  as  it  finds  its  final  and  permanent  place  in 
each  modern  vernacular,  as  a  part  of  the  far  broader  whole 
which  is  required  of  all,  in  place  of  itself  constituting  a  nar- 
rower whole  requiring  the  mastery  of  languages  which,  in 
other  ways,  are  useful  only  to  the  specialist,  and  render  a 
higher  cultural  training  impossible  to  the  mass  of  ad- 
vanced students.  It  is  only  as  language  study  includes 
literature,  and  not,  as  Dr.  Harris  insisted,  through 
forms  not  ^^^he  effect  of  the  mere  language  in  its  idioms  and 
essential  to  its  grammatical  structure,"  that  one  is  put  "into 
ture^^and'  ^^^  atmosphere  of  art,  literature,  and  science."^^ 
science.         Idioms  and  grammar  are  not  necessary  to  put 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  i6l 

one  '^into  the  stern,  self-sacrificing,  political  atmosphere  of 
Rome."  They  are  not  necessary  to  the  splendid  examples 
to  which  Thomas  Arnold  points  when  he  exclaims,  ** Aristotle, 
Plato,  and  Thucydides,  and  Cicero  and  Tacitus  are  most 
untruly  called  ancient  writers.  They  are  virtually  our  own 
countrymen  and  contemporaries,  but  have  the  advantage 
which  is  enjoyed  by  intelligent  travelers,  that  their  observa- 
tion has  been  exercised  in  a  field  out  of  the  reach  of  common 
men,  and  that,  having  thus  seen  in  a  manner  with  our  eyes 
what  we  cannot  see  for  ourselves,  their  conclusions  are  such 
as  bear  upon  our  own  circumstances;  while  their  information 
has  all  the  charm  of  novelty,  and  all  the  value  of  a  mass  of 
new  and  particular  facts,  illustrative  of  the  great  science  of 
the  nature  of  civilized  man."^^  It  is  doubtless  this  point  of 
view  that  Mr.  Roosevelt  has  in  mind  when  he  commends  the 
new  Amherst  plan  from  the  standpoint  of  citizenship.  But 
if,  as  is  not  the  case,  the  study  of  the  Greek  and  the  Latin 
languages  should  be  necessary  to  give  the  viewpoint  of  an- 
cient worthies,  it  would  still  remain  "out  of  the  reach  of 
common  men,"  and  the  most  that  could  be  said  for  it  would 
be  that  the  men  who  specialized  in  it  would  find  much  that 
interprets  modern  life. 

Unessential  to  the  majority  of  individuals,  both  for  the 
attainment  of  the  noblest  contributions  to  culture  and 
civilization,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  general  discipline,  the 
ancient  languages,  no  longer  required  of  the  general  student, 
become  an  increasingly  precious  charge  upon  the  specialist. 
For  such  specialization  the  new  Amherst  would  afford  a 
highly  favorable  opportunity,  and  other  institutions  here 
and  there  throughout  the  country  might  well  afford  to  follow 
the  lead  which  the  group  of  her  alumni  have  suggested. 

But  from  the  standpoint  of  the  general  student, 
the  present  relationship  of  the  classics  and  of  an-  tionstdiTof 
cient  history  must  be  reversed.     In  place  of  con-  the  classics 
densing  ancient  history  in  the  high  school  to  an   ^!^^  of  an- 
intensive  study  of  Greece  and  Rome,  which  all  tory  must  be 
students  who  elect  history  are  too  frequently  com-   reversed. 
11 


l62  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

pelled  to  take  for  the  sake  of  those  who  are  to  study  the  Greek 
or  Latin  languages,  all  students  should  be  required  to  read 
good  translations  of  those  parts  of  ancient  literature  which 
throw  the  most  light  upon  history  and  give  to  the  most  useful 
contributions  of  ancient  peoples  their  highest  emotional  ex- 
pression.   Ancient  literature,  as  a  whole,  cannot  be  related 

to  modern  life,  and  even  the  efforts  of  Thomas 
attempt  to  Arnold  to  so  relate  it  resulted  in  absurd  imita- 
relate  the  tions  by  others.  Mr.  Quick,  for  example,  rep- 
classics  as  resents  one  of  his  fellow- workers  as  asking  of  his 
modern  life.  P^pils  not  only,  "Is  any  modern  expedition  like 

Caesar's?  Are  modern  people  like  Britons?  Are 
we  Britons?"  but  "Which  in  the  form  is  most  so?"  and  "Is 
Napoleon  III  more  nearly  descended  from  Julius  Caesar, 
Cassivelaunus,  Caractacus,  or  the  Ubii?" 


13.  The  Material  of  Culture,  Whether  Ancient  or  Modern, 
Proved  Most  Useful  By  the  Test  of  Relative  Worth,  Will 
Be  Possible  to  All  and  Must  Be  Required  of  All 

The  same  many-sidedness  of  useful  relationship,  frequency 
of  useful  recurrence,  and  degree  of  useful  sensation  or  emotion 
that  test  relationships  in  general,  must  form  the  basis  for  the 
selection  of  cultural  material,  whether  ancient  or  modern. 
The  result  must  be  a  common  culture  for  the  masses,  which 
precedes  specialization  whether  in  vocation  or  in  culture 
itself,  and  continues  to  parallel  it  at  every  stage  of  develop- 
nient.  It  must  be  a  culture  possible  to  all  and  required  of  all. 
Related  as  far  as  is  practicable  to  every  other  phase  of  direct 
preparation,  it  will  no  longer,  on  the  one  hand,  be  hostile  to 
technical  training,  and,  on  the  other,  fail  to  gain  the  certainty 
and  continuity  that  its  emotional  furtherance  of  direct  prep- 
aration will  give. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  163 

14.  With  Both  Culture  and  General  Discipline  Assured  through 
Direct   Preparation,    No  Further  Ground   Remains  for 
Excluding  from    Higher   Education  the  Students   Who 
Fail  in  the  Old  Formal  Subjects 
Above  all,  with  both  culture  and  general  discipline  thus 
assured  through  direct  preparation  for  life,  no  further  ground 
remains  for  excluding  from  a  higher  education        .    . 
the  pupils  who  fail  in  the  old  "formal"  or  ''cul-   mediocre  *^ 
tural"  subjects.     Common  concentration  for  all  students 
students,  upon  a  branch  of  mathematics  and  a  ^^°^  *^" 
language,  is  not  a  panacea  for  a  defective  mental  fatal  both 
training  which  either  the  science  of  education  or  to  individ- 
republican  institutions  can  permit.     To  exclude   democracy 
from  high  school  or  college  young  men  and  young 
women  economically  able  to  enter,  through  insistence  upon 
subjects  unrelated  to  direct  preparation  for  life,  and  the 
assumption  that  individuals  who  fail  to  master  them  are  not 
adapted  for  higher  liberal  training,  is  fatal  both  to  individual- 
ism and  democracy.      It  is  fatal  not  only  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  citizen,  through  preventing  the  exercise  of  an  equal 
right  to  a  higher  education  which,  so  far  as  economic  condi- 
tions permit,  should  be  as  universal  as  elementary  education 
itself,  but  from  the  standpoint  of  the  state,  through  denying 
to  the  school  the  opportunity  to,  so  far  as  possible,  compel  the 
more  advanced  direct  training  as  essential  to  enlightened 
citizenship  as  to  leadership.     Under  present  economic  con- 
ditions the  state  cannot  make  higher  education  compulsory, 
but  it  can  refuse  to  permit  any  unnecessary  obstacle  to  a 
form  of  individual  betterment  which  so  surely  promotes  its 
well-being.     The  high  school  and  college  do  not  gig^ 
exist  merely  for  the  training  of  leaders  whose   school  and 
names  may  figure  in  some  future  "Who's  Who  in  college  do 
America?"  and  the  measure  of  their  usefulness   only  for  the 
lies  but  partially  in  the  proportion  of  great  names  training  of 
enrolled  upon  their  alumni  registers.     No  matter  ^®^^®^^- 
how  unmathematical  the  mind  that  they  attempt  to  discipline, 
no  matter  how  reluctant  the  tongue  to  repeat  the  accents  of 


l64  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

other  peoples,  every  useful  relationship  that  is  made  certain 
and  sure,  every  addition  to  many-sidedness  of  knowledge, 
every  right  impression  that  is  re-enforced,  even  each  partial 
retention  and  understanding  of  great  thoughts — the  relative 
failure  at  which  the  pedant  jeers — tends  to  raise  the  general 
level  of  individual  life  and  of  the  civilization  to  which  it  gives 
rise.  When  it  is  economically  possible,  each  individual  must 
have  not  only  the  vocational  or  specialized  training  for  which 
he  is  individually  most  fit,  but  the  more  advanced  stages  of 
direct  preparation  for  life  in  general  that  should  be  common  to 
all  fellow-citizens  in  community  and  republic.  As  Isocrates 
said  of  the  training  of  the  orator,  "But  as  for  those  who  are 
of  a  weaker  genius,  it  will  never  render  them  adroit  pleaders 
or  great  orators;  but  it  will  make  them  excel  themselves,  and 
become  more  prudent  in  many  things.  "^^ 


CHAPTER  VI 

UNIFORMITY  FOR  VARIOUS  LOCALITIES  IN  THE  GENERAL 
COURSE  OF  STUDY  LIMITED  TO  THE  ESSENTIAL  RE- 
LATIONSHIPS   WHICH    MUST    BE    CERTAINLY    MEMORIZED 

I.  The  Fundamental  Nature  of  the  Distinction  Between  Essen- 
tial Relationships  Which  Must  he  Specifically  and  Per- 
manently Memorized  and  the  Optional  Relationships  Left 
to  Individual  Apperception 
In  the  light  of  present  educational  tendencies,  and  espe- 
cially in  view  of  the  extreme  reaction  from  mechanical  memor- 
izing, the  fact  most   significant  to  formal   self-  ^j^^     j.^_ 
activity,  which  resulted  from  its  analysis,  is  the  mount  im- 
paramount  importance  of  specific  discipline.     It  portance  of 
is  useful  not  only  in  itself,  and  as  a  means  to  useful   cipUne^and^ 
remembrance  and  apperception,  but  pre-eminently  hence,  of 

both  as  the  first  stage  of  general  discipline  and  mechanical 
.  ...  .   ^       ,,  r       T-.     memorizing, 

among   the   conditions   favorable   to   it.     It   is 

not  less  memorizing  than  was  characteristic  of  the  old  educa- 
tion that  is  called  for,  but  more.  The  distinction  between  the 
old  and  the  new  must  not  continue  to  be  the  distinction  be- 
tween discipline  and  varying  apperception,  but  must  come  to 
be  between  the  memorizing  of  facts  as  facts  and  the  memoriz- 
ing of  essential  relationships;  between  the  devotion  of  all 
school  time  to  the  memorizing  of  far  more  than  can  be  per- 
manently retained,  and  the  certain  memorizing  and  retention 
of  as  much  as  is  useful  and  possible,  with  time  physiologically 
and  psychologically  limited.  This  physiological  and  psycho- 
ological  limit  to  the  time  that  can  be  effectively  spent  in 
memorizing,  and  hence  to  the  amount  of  subject  matter  that 
can  be  retained  in  definite  and  specific  relationships,  indicates 
the  most  fundamental  pedagogic  distinction,  both  for  curric^ 

165 


166  CULTURE  DISCIl^LINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

ulum  and  method.  It  is  the  distinction  between  specific  rela- 
tionships, relatively  so  useful  that  they  must  be  made  certain 
and  permanent,  and  specific  relationships  perhaps  little  less 
useful,  that  cannot  be  repeated  often  enough  to  be  made  per- 

manent.  That  is,  determination  of  the  relative 
determining  usefulness  of  particular  retationships,  direct  and 
relation-  indirect,  is  the  only  mode  of  determining  which 
^morized  ^^^^^^  t)e  made  specific  and  certain  in  the  time 
identical  for  effective  for  repetition,and  which  must  remain 
direct  prep-  variable  and  uncertain. 

formal^'self-  Fortunately,  as  has  already  been  demonstrated, 
activity,  the  test  of  relative  worth  is  identical,  whether  the 
and  special-  relationship  in  itself  involves  direct  furtherance 

through  specific  discipline,  or  is  acquired  as  a 
means  to  indirect  furtherance  through  formal  self-activity 
that  is  not  specific.  For  each  phase  of  the  educational  aim, 
for  each  form  of  educational  self-activity,  for  every  specialized 
vocation  or  branch  of  knowledge,  that  particular  relationship  is 
most  useful  which  is  greatest  in  its  relative  many-sidedness  of 
helpful  relationships,  frequency  of  useful  recurrence,  and 
degree  of  stimulus  to  useful  sensation  or  emotion.  If  exact 
determination  of  relative  worth  of  relationships  were  desir- 
able, it  thus  becomes  theoretically  possible.  Many-sided- 
ness, recurrence,  and  degree  can  be  counted  and  measured. 

2.  The  Obviously  Greater  Usefulness  of  Essential  Material  and 
the  Abundance  of  Optional  Material  of  Approximately 
Equal    Usefulness   Make   an   Exact    Determination   of 
Relative  Worth  Unnecessary 
Practically,  however,  precision  is  unnecessary.     Both  from 
the  standpoint  of  time  effective  for  memorizing,  and  that  of 
the  relatively  small  number  of  relationships  sufficiently  useful 
to  be  made  definite  and  permanent,  the  differences  in  relative 
worth  between  the  most  useful  relationships  and  the  least 
useful  are  so  great  that  they  are  easily  distinguished.     Be- 
tween them  there  is  a  safe  margin  of  material,  useful  enough 
for  certain  memorizing,  if  time  permits,  but  which  can  never  be 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  167 

made  permanent  through  persistent  review.  In  this  optional 
content,  useful  enough  to  be  presented  to  all,  but  from  which 
each  individual  will  choose  and  retain  a  varying  amount  in 
varying  relationships,  the  precise  determination  of  relative 
worth  would  involve  closer  comparisons  and  finer  distinctions. 
But  the  very  fact  that  individual  variation  in  retention  and 
apperception  is  inevitable  makes  it  immaterial  as  to  which 
are  included  from  among  a  number  of  ideas  or  activities 
whose  relative  usefulness  is  so  nearly  equal  as  to  make  precise 
evaluation  necessary  to  its  calculation.  That  is,  individual 
variation  in  apperception  will  modify  optional  relationships 
to  such  an  extent  as  to  practically  offset  all  minor  differences 
in  their  theoretical  usefulness. 

3.  //  Follows  that  Courses  of  Study,  While  Uniform  in  Their 
Essential   Relationships,   are   Identical  in  the   Relative 
Usefulness  of  Their  Optional  Relationships  Rather  than 
in  the  Optional  Relationships  Themselves 
It  follows  that  the  same  years  or  grades  in  courses  of  study 
in  different  institutions  and  localities,  in  branches  rich  in 
content,  will  be  identical  only  in  relationships  that  they  ex- 
clude altogether,  and  in  those  that  are  definitely  and  certainly 
memorized.     That  is,  they  will  be  identical  in  relationships 
so  useless  or  harmful  that  they  are  omitted  altogether,  and  in 
those  so  essential  that  all  individuals  must  definitely  and  cer- 
tainly master  them  in  common,  and  usually  as  a  specific  part 
of  a  definite  system  of  similarly  essential  ideas  and  activities. 
With  the  optional  material  estimation  of  comparative  worth 
of  relationships  will  result  in  uniformity  of  content  and  cur- 
riculum, but  in  a  uniformity  which  consists  not  so  much  in 
identity  in  the  details  of  subject  matter  as  in  the  type  of 
details  and  their  approximate  usefulness. 

In  science,  for  example,  the  same  essential  principles  will 
be  memorized  by  all  individuals  and  in  all  localities,  but  the 
details  which  illustrate  them  will  be  partly  identical  and 
partly  variable,  according  to  the  smallness  or  largeness  of  the 
number  of  those  approximately  equal  in  their  usefulness. 


l68  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Oxidation  should  everywhere  be  illustrated  by  rust,  decay, 
combustion,  and  respiration — the  few  examples  most  fre- 
quently recurring  in  every-day  life, — but  rust  might  in  some 
environments  be  better  illustrated  by  scaling  tinware,  in 
others  by  tarnished  coins  or  door-plates,  and  in  still  others 
by  tools  or  machinery  left  out  of  doors.  Given  approxi- 
mately the  same  degree  of  emotional  interest,  the  same  heroic 
achievement  will  be  illustrated  in  Holland,  by  sea-beggar  and 
burgher,  as  in  America  by  continental  and  pioneer,  but  the 
stories  of  Leonidas  and  of  Von  Winkelried  become  universal 
through  the  exceptional  force  of  their  appeal  to  an  essential 
feeling.  Various  courses  of  study  need  not  contain  the 
same  poems  or  even  masterpieces  by  the  same  poets,  but 
all  must  contain  a  sufficient  variety  to  develop,  in  so  far  as 
possible,  in  each  individual  a  love  of  some  truly  poetical 
verse.  Two  equally  useful  text-books  in  history  could  be 
written  for  the  same  group  of  children  which  would  be  differ- 
ent in  almost  all  details,  with  the  exception  of  the  essential 
relationships,  which  should  be  made  certain  for  all. 

After  all,  however,  the  tendency  that  results  from  contin- 
ual consideration  of  the  relative  worth  of  relationships  is 
The  appli-  toward  identity  as  well  as  general  uniformity.  At 
cation  of  the  many  points  in  the  course  of  study,  where  there 
r^dT^^  d  ^^  ^^^  ^  variety  of  material  equally  many-sided, 
identity  in  recurring  or  emotional,  identity  of  optional  mate- 
courses  of  rial  becomes  as  necessary  as  identity  of  essential 
study.  material  itself.      In  this  there  is  no  menace  to 

individuality  or  to  formal  self-activity  that  is  not  specific. 

Individuality  will  assert  itself,  and  the  variety  of  associa- 
tion demanded  by  cumulative  impression,  mere  remembrance, 
and  varying  apperception  will  be  brought  about,  without 
regard  to  uniformity  or  lack  of  uniformity  in  curricula,  if 
sufficient  time  is  allowed  in  the  school  program  for  the  pre- 
sentation of  optional  material  that  is  not  to  be  made  certain 
and  specific.  Of  course,  a  minimum  of  individuality  would 
be  developed  in  spite  of  an  irrational  and  unpedagogical  effort 
to  have  all  subject  matter  definitely  and  permanently  re- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  169 

tained.  Its  development  is  encouraged,  however,  together 
with  that  of  the  forms  of  educational  self-activity  dependent 
upon  varying  relationships,  where  optional  content  is  given 
due  recognition  in  the  course  of  study.  While  the  first  step 
toward  due  recognition  is  specification  and  limitation  of  the 
essential  relationships  that  are  to  be  definitely  and  certainly 
mastered,  and,  therefore,  to  a  limited  extent  specification  of 
the  optional  material  with  which  it  is  compared,  the  proper 
emphasis  of  optional  material  is  not  assured.  Teachers  who 
have  been  striving  to  bring  about  such  memorizing  of  the 
entire  content  of  text-books  as  will  make  it  possible  for  all 
pupils  to  repeat  from  50  to  75  per  cent,  of  any  facts  that  an 
examiner  may  happen  to  select,  are  likely  to  look  upon  limi- 
tation of  the  amount  of  essential  material  as  an 
opportunity  for  more  "thorough"  work.  The  for^thV  ^ 
time  so  gained  can  readily  be  worse  than  wasted,  training  of 
if  devoted  to  the  even  more  monotonous  repeti-   *®^chers  to 

Gm.'Dllfl.SlZfi 

tion  and  review  that  is  possible  with  a  smaller  individual 
number  of  facts.     There  must  be  positive  pro-   appercep- 
vision  and  requirement  of  optional  material  and  f^^}^  ^ 
training  in  the  most  effective  methods  of  pre- 
senting it.     More  than  this,  it  must  be  tested  for  and  recog- 
nized in  determining  promotion.     No  school  or  school  sys- 
tem is  efficient  which  cannot  stand  the  test  which  determines 
what  each  pupil  individually  knows  as  the  result  of  varying 
apperception,  as  well  as  what  he  retains  and  applies  of  the  de- 
finite and  specific  relationships  exacted  in  common  of  all.    On 
the  one  hand,  he  must  be  asked  to  give  back  the  precise  thing 
which  he  has  been  taught;  on  the  other,  he  must  be  given 
opportunity  to  tell  whatever  the  thing  taught  calls  to  mind. 

4.  The  Certain  Memorizing  of  Essential  Relationships  a 
Necessary  Condition  to  the  Mastery  of  Optional  Material 
Not  that  there  is  no  connection  between  varying  appercep- 
tion and  specific  discipline.  The  more  one  definitely  and 
certainly  retains,  the  more  one  has  to  remember  by  and 
think  with.     The  "stupid''  boy,  who  may  be  only  a  poor 


I70  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

memorizer,  will  be  given  a  better  chance  from  the  stand- 
point of  imagination  itself,  if  the  relationships  which  are  most 
many-sided  in  their  usefulness,  are  drilled  upon  until  he  can- 
not help  getting  them.  Perhaps  time  lost  in  impressing  his 
'^dulness"  may  be  compensated  for  in  the  comparative 
readiness  with  which  he  will  retain  what  has  once  been 
memorized.  Such  a  pupil  often  succeeds  in  some  phase  of 
life  outside,  as  he  ought  to  have  succeeded  in  preparation  for 
every  phase  through  the  school,  either  because  the  repetition 
of  certain  factors  essential  to  individual  efficiency  is  remorse- 
lessly persistent,  or  because,  finally,  conscious  of  his  need  of 
others,  he  perseveres  until  they  become  a  part  of  him.  Or 
one  may  be  a  ready  memorizer,  but  still  lack  varying  apper- 
ception, and,  therefore,  general  discipline,  because  he  either 
memorizes  things  that  are  not  many-sided,  or,  not  ha\'ing 
been  made  conscious  of  their  many-sidedness  through  the 
varying  perception  of  optional  material  in  school,  remains 
unconscious  of  it  throughout  his  lifeless  and  monotonous 
existence.  On  the  other  hand,  the  careless,  the  lazy,  and 
even  the  brilliant  pupil  may  be  ready  in  memorizing  and 
weak  in  retentiveness.  He  may  remember  the  useful  thing 
for  a  time,  and  temporarily  apperceive  it  in  its  multiple  rela- 
tionships, but  fail  to  retain  it  in  the  specific  form  in  which  it 
is  most  many-sided,  or  to  make  the  relationships  habitual 
in  which  it  is  most  useful.  For  every  type  of  pupil,  whether 
from  the  standpoint  of  ensuring  their  initial  memorizing  or 
permanent  retention,  or  from  that  of  predetermining  what 
is  most  likely  to  be  retained  through  association  with  them, 
essential  relationships  must  be  persistently  called  to  mind  in 
and  through  the  school.  R.  H.  Quick,  while  himself  largely 
The  most  responsible  for  popularizing  the  ideals  of  the 
essential  "new  education,"  and,  believing  that  "unless 
relation-  interest  is  aroused,  the  mind — of  the  young  at 
be  made  least — does  not  and  cannot  work,"  insisted  just 
certain  in  as  emphatically  that  "the  only  way  of  really 
school.  getting  boys  to  know  things  properly  is  to  go  over 

and  over  again  the  same  ground  in  class." 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  171 

5.  Ignorance  of  Essential  Relationships  Too  Severe  a  Penalty 

for  Carelessness  or  Incompetence 

There  is  a  feeling  on  the  part  of  many  teachers  that  moral 
discipline  demands  that  the  incompetent  or  the  careless  boy 
should  pay  the  penalty  for  his  failure  by  being  retained  in 
lower  classes  or  grades.  Indeed,  in  some  schools  conduct  is 
reckoned  as  determining  promotion,  and  pupils  actually  able 
to  do  advanced  work  are  held  back  as  a  punishment  for  idle- 
ness or  misdemeanor.  In  others,  teachers  who  have  accepted 
self-activity  as  the  ideal  of  the  new  education,  without  fully 
comprehending  it  or  realizing  the  means  essential  to  its  real- 
ization, refuse  to  help  children  in  their  work  on  the  ground 
that  self-activity  is  thereby  rendered  impossible. 

How  soon  will  an  adequate  professional  training  convince 
them  that  self-activity,  whether  in  the  form  of  morality  or 
in  that  of  independent  thought  and  service,  is  not  an  unvary- 
ing condition  to  education,  but  too  often  its  remotest  end, 
and  that  school  and  teacher  exist  not  for  the  sake  of  bringing 
the  sinner  to  repentance,  but  to  compel  in  all  the  truth  that 
makes  men  free. 

6.  For  the  Sake  of  Both  Individual  and  State  Essential  Knowl- 
'  edge  must  he  Compelled  in  School 

A  system  of  public  education  exists  less  for  the  indi- 
vidual than  for  that  of  the  community  and  the  state. 
Precisely  the  same  grounds  on  which  every  citizen  is  com- 
pelled to  give  financial  support  for  the  school  and  to 
ensure  the  attendance  of  his  children,  justifies  the  teacher 
in  compelling,  so  far  as  is  pedagogically  possible,  the  train- 
ing for  which  the  school  exists.  It  is  in  the  memorizing 
and  retention  of  the  relationships  essential  not  only  to 
direct  furtherance  of  the  aim,  but  to  all  likelihood  of  useful- 
ness for  general  knowledge  and  discipline,  that  instruction 
can  and  must  be  most  exacting.  No  individual  must  be 
assigned  an  impossible  task.  Those  who  need  four  or  five 
times  the  average  amount  of  repetition  for  their  initial  memor- 


172  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

izing  must  be  distinguished  from  those  who  may  need  four 
or  five  times  the  normal  amount  of  review  in  order  to  retain 
what  may  have  been  readily  mastered.  But  more  certainly 
than  each  future  citizen  knows  his  alphabet  and  multiplica- 
tion table,  must  he  memorize  and  retain  the  few  specific  rela- 
tionships which  are  most  highly  useful,  both  in  themselves,  as 
directly  furthering  general  preparation  for  life  and  specializa- 
tion, and  as  a  means  to  every  useful  phase  of  formal  self- 
activity. 

The  amoimt  of  such  subject  matter  limits  itself.  As  but 
little  material  in  unvar^dng  relationships  can  be  effectively 
memiorized  and  reviewed  each  day,  it  will  consist  in  the  ele- 
mentary grades  mainly  of  facts  and  activities  made  certain 
in  the  specific  relationships  that  are  directly  useful  to  the 
majority  of  pupils  in  the  greatest  number  of  other  relation- 
ships and  occurrences  in  every-day  life.  Some  of  them  will  be 
academic;  some  reorganized  from  the  standpoint  of  various 
phases  of  the  aim.  All,  if  made  certain  through  right  method, 
will  be  disciplinary.  They  thus  furnish  the  concentration 
necessary  to  specific  discipline  not  through  speciaKzation  in 
formal  subjects,  but  through  selection  from  all. 

7.  Specialization  Varying  with  Individuals  Should  Parallel 

Direct  Preparation  in  General  and  he  Paralleled  hy  It, 

but  Certain  Memorizing  of  Its  Essential  Material  Must 

at  No  Point  in  the  Course  of  Study  Interfere  with  that  of 

the  Common  Content  Essential  to  All 

Supplementing    this   essential  or  directly  and  certainly 

useful  material  is  a  far  greater  number  of  relationships, 

relatively  but    little    less    useful,  which    cannot    be    cer- 

Subjective     tainly  memorized  by  all  in  common,  but  which 

specializa-     should  be  made  as  many-sided  and  interesting 

tion  in  the      ^^  possible,  connected  with  life  as  much  as  pos- 

grades  as-     sible,  and  especially  connected  with  the  essential 

sured  material.     It  should  be  presented  to  all  pupils, 

o^onS         and  all  pupils  should  be  required  to  add  from  it 

material.       to  their  common  content,  but  they  should  not  be 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  173 

expected  to  retain  the  same  parts  of  it  or  an  equal  amount 
of  it.  Subjective  specialization  will  have  its  freest  range  in 
the  elementary  grades,  through  the  individual  mastery  of  this 
optional  material,  in  varying  detail  and  quantity,  as  deter- 
mined by  varying  interests  and  varying  native  retentiveness. 
It  does  not  follow,  however,  that  subjective  specialization 
may  not  even  here  take  on  the  more  definite  form  of  academic 
or  even  professional  specialization.  On  the  contrary,  the 
highest  efficiency  cannot  be  reached,  if  a  strong  native  ten- 
dency that  fits  one  for  an  exceptionally  successful  study  of 
some  specific  subject  is  not  afforded  opportunity  for  the 
highest  useful  development.  The  concession  already  made 
to  music  or  the  fine  arts  must  also  be  made  to  the  pure 
mathematics  or  practical  mechanics. 

The  initial  limit  to  vocational  specialization  is  found  in 
economic  conditions,  not  merely  in  the  sense  of  necessity 
for  wage  earning,  but  in  the  extent  to  which  many-sidedness 
will  so  increase  efficiency  as  to  justify  the  postponement  and/ 
hence,  the  shortening  of  the  period  of  actual  service.  The 
postponement  of  manual  occupation,  even  for  the  sake  of  an 
almost  purely  academic  high  school  course  of  study,  has  been 
justified  by  the  investigations  of  the  Massachusetts  Indus- 
trial Commission,  of  which  Professor  Hanus  of  Harvard 
was  the  head.  The  bearing  of  economic  conditions 
upon  the  question  of  a  four-year  college  course,  in 
preparation  for  medicine  and  other  professions,  is  at  least 
partially  dependent  upon  whether  or  not  the  four-year 
college  course  is  to  omit  from  its  aim  the  "half-truth  of 
service." 

In   the   high  school   and  other  secondary  schools  direct 
preparation  for  life  in  general  must  continue,  if  for  no  other 
reason  than  the  fact  that  it  covers  the  period  specializa- 
of  adolescence  which,   as  Dr.   Chancellor    has  tion  must 
pointed  out,  is,  on  account  of  its  potentialities  7^^?  ^^^ 
for  good  or  evil,  the  most  effective  time  for  com- 
pulsory school  attendance.     Since  the  economic  limit  to  pro- 
fessional specialization  varies  with  individuals,  the  course 


174         CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

for  this  period  of  life  will  in  some  schools  include  directly 
vocational  subjects;  in  others,  subjects  that  are  preparatory 
to  vocational  or  academic  specialization.  In  fact,  in  high 
school  and  college  academic  specialization  solely  reduces 
itself  either  to  subjective  specialization  or  to  vocational 
specialization  that  itself  should  be  subjective.  That  is, 
students  should  specialize  either  in  that  for  which  they 
are  best  fitted  by  natural  ability,  or  for  which  they  have 
acquired  interest  both  with  and  without  vocational  in- 
tent. 

Any  type  of  specialization  can  result  in  the  concentration 
and  repetition  necessary  to  specific  discipline.  Whether  it 
does  or  does  not,  in  any  case  depends  upon  the  efficiency  of 
pedagogic  method.  Now,  it  is  clear  that  subjective  tenden- 
cies which  condition  adaptation  to  individuality  are  most 
;Certain  to  reveal  themselves  when  the  individual  has  been 
brought  in  contact  in  a  many-sided  way  with  all  possible 
branches  of  knowledge  and  phases  of  activity.  It  follows 
that,  even  from  the  standpoint  of  specialization,  many- 
sidedness  must  parallel  specialization  until  specialization 
is  complete.  That  is,  while  specialization  may  begin  in 
the  elementary  school,  it  must,  for  its  own  sake,  be 
paralleled  through  high  school  and  college  by  an  inde- 
pendent and  possibly  unrelated  many-sidedness  which  may 
determine  vocation — ^perhaps  along  lines  quite  different 
from  those  in  which  the  earlier  subjective  specialization 
was  begun. 

Specialization  then,  as  already  pointed  out,  whether 
directly  for  the  sake  of  vocation,  or  as  a  condition  to  disci- 
pline, should  vary  with  individuals.  For  the  champions  of 
formal  discipline  to  ensure  concentration  through  insisting 
that  all  candidates  for  admission  to  college  should  speciaHze 
in  two  or  three  common  required  subjects,  would  result  in  the 
continued  exclusion  of  many  not  adapted  by  natural  capacity 
to  the  work  required,  and  in  a  lessening  of  the  efficiency  of  all 
who  could  have  specialized  in  other  subjects  to  greater  ad- 
vantage. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  175 

After  the  economic  limit  which  compels  vocational  spe- 
cialization has  been  reached,  it  must  become  increasingly 
dominant  in  the  educational  content,  but  only      . 
as  an  increasingly  important  phase  of  direct  prep-   higher 
aration  for  life  in  all  its  phases.     It  must  not  grades  spe- 

exclude  direct  preparation  for  right  living,  good  "aUzation 
.11.-  •  1.1  must  not 

health,  social  and  civic  service,  and  the  proper  exclude 

employment  of  leisure.  Here,  however,  the  prob-  review  of 
lem  of  relative  time  and  subject  matter  is  not  so  f^  g^g^^^^, 
simply  solved  as  in  the  elementary  school.  Here, 
as  there,  the  amount  of  time  which  can  be  effectively  devoted 
to  memorizing  and  review  limits  the  number  of  specific  and 
definite  relationships  which  can  be  certainly  fixed,  and  so 
leaves  free  range  for  individual  selection  from  the  optional 
material  presented  in  many-sided  relationship  to  them.  But 
the  specialized  material  is  itself  partly  dependent  upon  defi- 
niteness  and  certainty  of  relationship  and  the  study  of 
branches  as  wholes.  Hence,  either  the  material  essential  to 
general  phases  of  direct  preparation  must  have  been  so  thor- 
oughly mastered  in  the  lower  grades  that  only  enough  time 
need  be  devoted  to  it  to  ensure  its  amplification  and  review, 
or  the  professional  course  must  be  unduly  prolonged.  For 
the  trained  specialist,  as  well  as  for  the  masses,  direct  prep- 
aration for  life  must  be  mainly  brought  about  in  the  ele- 
mentary school.  But  for  all  economically  able  to  continue 
their  education  beyond  it,  a  broader  and  more  certain  direct 
preparation  must  be  ensured  through  high  school,  college, 
and  even  the  most  advanced  types  of  vocational  school.  The 
point  is  never  reached  in  education  where  an  occasional  lec- 
ture on  the  ethics  of  a  profession  or  talk  on  personal  purity, 
public  hygiene,  or  good  citizenship  can  take  the  place  of  sys- 
tematic, cumulative,  and  persistent  training.  In  this  extra- 
vocational  material  must  also  be  included  the  common  cul- 
ture necessary  to  democracy,  both  from  the  standpoint  of 
service  and  of  leisure.  But  it  cannot  be  a  content  isolated 
from  the  every-day  life  of  which  vocation  itself  is  a  part. 
It  must  be  twofold,  on  the  one  hand  embracing  cultural 


176  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

material  which  includes  or  is  associated  with  the  definite 
and  certain  relationships  necessary  to  morals,  health,  social 
service,  good  citizenship,  and  industry  in  general,  and  on 
the  other  that  which  includes  or  is  associated  with  the 
material  essential  to  proficiency  in  the  vocation  itself.  To 
assume  that  a  many-sided  content,  otherwise  cultural,  is 
rendered  illiberal  through  specific  and  definite  associa- 
tion with  every-day  life,  even  in  the  sense  of  wage 
earning,  is  a  blunder,  pagan,  aristocratic,  and  in  itself 
illiberal. 

Direct  preparation  for  life,  specialization,  culture,  and 
discipline  do  not  differ  so  much  in  the  details  which  ensure 
many-sidedness  through  optional  material,  as 
^^^ti^n^^^^'  ^^  ^^  ^^^^  relationships  or  habits  which  each 
speciaUza-  brings  to  bear  upon  these  common  details  and 
tion,  cul-  through  which  they  are  reorganized  and  made 
genera?  dis-  useful.  That  is,  they  differ  in  the  relationships 
cipline  have  that  are  to  be  thoroughly  memorized  and  perma- 
a  common  nently  retained.  Direct  and  general  preparation 
content.  ^^^  ^^^^j  including  the  aesthetic  training  essential  to 
culture,  brings  to  bear  relationships  definitely  and 
certainly  useful  to  morals  and  religion,  health,  industrial 
efficiency,  citizenship,  social  service,  or  individual  and  social 
leisure.  These  relationships  are  quite  distinct  from,  though 
often  inclusive  of,  those  peculiar  to  the  various  academic 
branches.  Vocational  specialization  equally  direct  brings 
to  bear  definite  relationships  peculiar  to  it,  but  includes  all 
relationships  which  in  a  general  way  prepare  for  industrial 
efficiency,  together  with  academic  relationships  and  branches 
in  part  or  as  wholes. 

Indirect  preparation  brings  to  bear,  through  academic 
specialization  and  general  culture,  specific  relationships 
which  have  been  made  at  least  temporarily  certain  through 
instruction,  and  through  individuality  relationships  which 
have  been  made  permanent  through  incidental  but  cumula- 
tive experience. 

If  not  directly  related  to  what  continually  recurs  in  life, 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY         177 

purely  academic  or  "liberaF'  habits,  whether  due  to  academic 

specialization  or  developed  as  a  part  of  general 

culture,  soon  cease  to  be  habits.     Losing  their      tionsWps" 

definiteness  and  certainty  through  lack  of  repe-      essential 

tition,  they  become  partial  and  variable  concepts      *?  ^°f  *"  , 
•  4.V   ^'         •      ^T.   •  X  ^   1       tional  and 

or  impressions,  constituting  m  their  sum  total      general 

''the  attitude  of  mind''  which,  potentially  valu-  education 
able  in  itself,  is  unworthy  of  President  Hadley's  Identical 
identification  of  it  with  a  liberal  "education"  as  a 
whole.  It  is  what  the  traditional  college  education  often  is, 
not  what  it  ought  to  be.  At  its  worst  it  may  result  in  aloof- 
ness from  citizenship  and  disgust  for  practical  affairs,  and  at 
its  best,  in  a  social  bond  between  men  who  have  had  a  com- 
mon training  and  experience,  and  a  means  to  intelligent  in- 
terest in  current  academic  questions  and  affairs — virtues 
that  are  possessed  quite  as  fully  by  those  whose  equally  gen- 
eral training  has  been  related  to  life. 

The  habits  developed  through  academic  specialization  and 
culture  must  remain  definite  and  specific  if  specialization  is 
to  develop  and  culture  to  grow.  While  in  part  distinct  from 
those  which  directly  prepare  for  life,  both  general  and  voca- 
tional, they  should  be  as  fully  as  possible  related  to  them,  not 
only  because  through  such  a  relationship  to  the  part  of  the 
mental  content  which  both  instruction  and  every-day  experi- 
ence will  make  most  permanent  they  are  themselves  given 
the  greatest  likelihood  of  permanence,  but  because,  if  they 
should  pass  into  the  stage  of  mere  remembrance  or  impression, 
they  will,  through  such  initial  relationship,  still  have  a  great 
likelihood  of  usefulness. 

Both  a  partial  identity  of  specific  relationships  and  this 
necessity  for  associating  specific  relationships  that  are  indi- 
rectly useful  with  those  that  are  useful  directly  greatly  sim- 
plifies the  problem  of  apportioning  between  direct  prepara- 
tion for  life — general  and  vocational, — culture,  discipline,  and 
academic  specialization,  the  limited  time  which,  through 
physiological  and  psychological  conditions,  can  be  effectively 
and  healthfully  devoted  to  memorizing  and  review.  The 
12 


178  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

problem  is  further  simplified  by  the  analysis  already  made  of 
the  conditions  necessary  to  general  discipline. 

The  concentration  necessary  to  specific  discipline,  then, 
should  be  brought  about  for  all  individuals  through  the  sys- 
tematic mastery  of  the  relationships  essential  to 

The  limited    (jij-^ct   preparation  for  life,  and  for  most  indi- 

time  effect-       .  ,      ,       ,        ,  ,  .,..., 

ive  for  viduals  also  through  specialization  m  the  particu- 

memorizing  lar  subject  or  subjects  which  either  are  peculiarly 
spedaliza-  adapted  to  their  innate  or  acquired  abilities  or  are 
tion  on  dis-  essential  vocationally.  But  school  life  is  too  short 
ciplinary  ^^j^^j  |-]^g  ^jjj^g  which  can  be  devoted  to  memorizing 
alone.  ^^^    review  too  brief  to  require   specialization 

by  all  pupils,  on  disciplinary  grounds  alone,  in 
a  formal  subject  the  disciplinary  efficiency  of  which  is  largely 
due  to  the  necessity  for  memorizing  and  retaining  its  entire 
subject  matter.  Still  less  should  it  be  required  when  its 
specific  relationships  are  not  connected  with  hfe  in  general 
and,  therefore,  certain  to  be  soon  forgotten  by  all  but  the 
specialist.  Still  less  should  it  be  required  in  view  of  the 
great  variation  in  the  native .  retentiveness  of  students,  which 
condemns  a  large  portion  of  them  to  choose  between  failure 
in  such  a  subject,  overwork,  or  inability  to  memorize  what  is 
specifically  essential  in  other  studies.  Still  less  should  it  be 
required  for  college  entrance,  when  after  being  temporarily 
mastered  in  a  preparatory  school  course,  it  is  reviewed  for 
entrance  purposes  in  the  spring  and  then  so  completely  for- 
gotten in  the  fall  as  to  awaken  the  distrust  of  college  instruc- 
tors in  the  efficiency  of  preparatory  school  training.  Concen- 
tration, for  the  sake  of  discipline  on  a  subject  such  as  this, 
not  only  means  the  readily  apparent  disproportion  of  time  in 
hours  per  week,  terms  per  year  and  years  in  course,  but  a 
much  greater  and  far  more  serious  disproportion  in  the  de- 
mand upon  the  precious  time  available  for  memory  work. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  INADEQUACY  OF  TESTS  FOR  THE  MERE  ELIMINATION 
OF  HARMFUL,  SPECIALIZED,  OR  IMPRACTICABLE  MATE- 
RIAL   FROM    THE    COURSE    OF    STUDY 

I.  Dr,  McMurry^s  Test  for  Elimination  Suggestive  Rather 
than  Determining 

A  STEP  which  greatly  simplifies  the  determination  of  the 
relative  usefulness  of  relationships  is  the  elimination  from 
comparison  of  a  great  mass  of  material  that  is  harmful,  spe- 
cialized, or  impracticable.  Dr.  Frank  McMurry's  well- 
known  test  was  suggestive  rather  than  practical.^^  It  will 
continue  to  have  historical  value  from  the  fact  that  it  turned 
the  attention  of  investigators  from  the  relative  values  of 
branches  as  wholes,  to  that  of  the  constituent  details  within 
each  branch.  It  became  immediately  popular  from  the 
situation  that  confronted  the  mass  of  teachers — the  intro- 
duction of  new  subject  matter  into  the  course  of  study  with- 
out any  authoritative  basis  for  the  elimination  of  the  old.  It 
failed  of  application  because  of  the  vagueness  or  lack  of 
definiteness  of  principles  whose  truth  was  self-apparent. 
No  modern  educational  thinker  is  likely  to  deny  that  all 
details  of  subject  matter  should  be  excluded  that  are  not 
useful  in  the  broad  sense,  that  are  not  capable  of  bemg  related 
to  other  details,  that  are  not  within  the  comprehension  of 
pupils  and  that  are  not  interesting — unless  lack  of  interest  is 
balanced  by  obvious  usefulness  and  readiness  of  comprehen- 
sion and  relationship.  But  even  in  the  sense  of  direct  use- 
fulness, in  which  Professor  McMurry  and  Dr.  Rice  use  the 
term,  it  is  unsafe  both  in  being  too  inclusive  and  too  exclus- 
ive.    Relationships  essential  to  the  indirect  furtherance  of 

179 


l8o  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

the  aim  through  general  discipKne  must  not  be  omitted, 
while  all  relationships  directly  useful  to  the  race  cannot  be 
included.  All  ideas  are  capable  of  being  related  to  other  ideas. 
The  whole  problem  of  selection  or  rejection  turns  upon  the 
relative  usefulness  of  relationships.  If  Dr.  McMurry  had 
in  mind  exclusion  of  details  that  are  not  capable  of  being 
related  to  ideas  in  the  minds  of  a  particular  class  of  learners, 
capability  of  relationship  coincides  with  comprehension. 
But  the  possibility  of  comprehension  at  each  stage  of  ad- 
vancement itself  depends  upon  whether  completeness  of 
comprehension  is  exacted  or  whether  a  partial  concept  may 
be  taught.  The  fact  that  the  most  useful  of  ideas  and  activi- 
ties are  often  the  most  complex  through  the  very  many-sided- 
ness of  relationship  that  makes  them  useful,  and,  therefore, 
beyond  the  complete  comprehension  of  particular  classes  of 
learners,  is  no  reason  why  they  should  be  excluded.  On  the 
contrary,  as  already  pointed  out  in  the  discussion  of  formal 
self-activity,  any  idea  highly  useful  to  the  mass  of  individuals 
can  and  should  be  taught  in  some  partial  relationship  in 
even  the  lowest  school  grades  as  a  means  to  both  mere  re- 
membrance and  var3dng  apperception.  Finally,  interest  in 
the  broad  Herbartian  sense  in  which  Dr.  McMurry  uses 
the  term,  is  possible  wherever  there  is  comprehension,  and  is 
dependent  upon  organization  of  material  and  method  of 
instruction,  rather  than  on  something  inherent  in  the  thing 
taught.  While  interest,  inherent  because  dependent  on 
sensation,  measures  degree  of  usefulness,  its  absence  fails  to 
afford  safe  ground  for  exclusion. 

The  prgblem  of  elimination  and  selection  is  greatly  simpli- 
fied, if  sharp  distinction  is  drawn  between  the  determination 
of  the  single  relationships  whose  sum  total  is  to  constitute  the 
content  of  general  education  or  of  a  particular  phase  of  spe- 
cialization, and  that  of  the  relative  usefulness  of  the  factors 
involved  in  organization  and  method.  With  this  distinction 
held  in  mind,  both  the  "comprehension"  and  "interest''  of 
Dr.  McMurry's  test  are  probably  reducible  to  immediacy 
of  many-sidedness,  recurrence,  and  emotional  appeal. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  l8l 

2.  A  More  Adequate  Test  for  Total  Rejection  or  Exclusion 

of   Particular    Relationships  from    Both   Optional   and 
Essential  Content 

Limited  to  content,  as  distinct  from  organization  and 
method,  elimination,  in  the  sense  of  the  total  rejection  or 
exclusion  of  particular  relationships  from  optional  as  well  as 
from  essential  material,  is  governed  by  the  following  principles : 
Reject  from  the  general  course  of  study  all  relationships  (i) 
which  are  antagonistic  to  any  phase  of  the  educational  aim; 
(2)  which  are  not  useful  to  the  majority  of  individuals  who 
are  not  specialists,  or  in  a  specialized  phase  of  education, 
to  the  majority  of  those  who  are;  (3)  which  are  either  being 
effectively  taught  outside  the  institution  for  Principles 
which  the  course  is  intended,  or  which  cannot  be  of  elimina- 
effectively  taught  within  it.  These  principles  **°^* 
are  definite  enough  to  be  readily  applied  by  the  mass  of 
teachers,  as  well  as  by  the  experts  responsible  for  text-books 
and  for  courses  of  study,  and  they  have  been  in  the  minds  of 
those  who  have  been  responsible  for  the  elimination  that 
in  a  few  at  least  of  the  familiar  branches  already  has  been 
brought  about.  Witness  expurgated  editions  of  the  ancient 
classics  and  selected  masterpieces  from  too  realistic  modern 
writers,  the  omission  from  arithmetical  practice  work  of 
operations  and  terminology  peculiar  to  highly  specialized 
occupations,  of  detailed  campaigning  from  history,  and  of 
anatomical  and  physiological  technique  from  hygiene.  But 
a  more  thorough  application  of  the  test  by  experts  and  com- 
mittees of  experts  will  serve  to  check  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
specialist,  and  regulate  a  selection  that  is  still  often  too  in- 
clusive. 

3.  Necessity  for  the  Further  Exclusion  of  Material  Hostile  to 

the  Educational  Aim 

From  the  standpoint  of  culture,  the   exclusion   of   the 
immoral,   the   unhealthy,    the   undemocratic,    has    already 


l82  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

been  discussed.  The  more  artistic  or  realistic  the  thing 
Theim-  that  is  sensual  or  foul,  especially  if  it  is  some 
moral  more  general  idea  that  may  become  an  habitual 
itTs°in  ^  feeling  or  attitude  of  mind,  the  general  stimulus 
89sthetic  to  many-sided  thought  and  action,  the  greater 
form.  its  menace  to  useful  development  and  right  living. 

Even  the  vivid  descriptions  of  the  immoral  intended,  like 
those  of  Tolstoi,  to  show  the  inexorable  punishment  of  social 
evil,  together  with  current  effort  to  teach  personal  purity 
through  a  biological  treatment  of  sex-hygiene,  are  far  more 
likely  to  re-enforce  the  ever-present  temptations  of  sense,  than 
to  impress  the  mind  with  consequences  that  are  impersonal 
and  remote.  In  any  event,  there  is  no  room  in  a  college 
course  in  literature  for  certain  phases  of  Walt  Whitman's 
materialism  or  the  contagious  spirit  of  a  drinking  song.  It 
is  not  necessary,  however,  to  carry  elimination  or  expurgation 
to  such  a  length  as  the  total  abstaining  lover  of  Scott,  who 
made  Lochinvar,  at  least  at  one  point,  a  safer  model  for  youth 
by  substituting  for  the  lines,  "With  this  lost  love  of  mine  to 
dance  but  one  measure,  drink  one  cup  of  wine,"  the  less 
alluring  couplet,  *^With  this  lost  Scottish  maid  to  dance  but 
one  measure,  drink  one  lemonade." 

Benjamin  Rush  pointed  out  the  danger  to  democracy  in 
turning  Dolly  Madisons  into  Janice  Merediths  through  the 

reading  of  romances  that  idealize  aristocratic 
hostile*to^  society.  From  this  viewpoint  may  it  not  be 
good  citi-  inadvisable  to  include  in  American  school  history 
zenship  graphic  descriptions  of  lordly  pomp  and  royal 
excluded.       pageantry,  as  it  would  be  in  that  of  Russia  to 

sympathetically  picture  the  French  Revolution. 
In  our  teaching  of  patriotism  we  can  never  afford  to  omit  the 
heroic  achievements  in  time  of  war  that  have  given  us  our 
national  heroes,  but  we  can  safely  eliminate  all  that  tends 
to  stimulate  to  bloody  combat  and  unjust  conquest.  The 
story  of  Hannah  Dunstan  or  of  Captain  Jack  was  good  for 
our  pioneer  ancestors,  subject  to  Indian  raid  and  massacre, 
but  today  it  merely  sows  the  dragons'  teeth  in  the  fertile 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  183 

imagination  of  boyhood.  The  fact  that  young  children,  in 
the  fee-fi-fo-fum  stage  of  human  existence,  are  interested  in 
bloodshed  and  in  mortal  conflict  is  no  reason  why  they  should 
be  fed  on  folklore  and  myth  which  strengthen  feelings  and 
ideals  hostile  to  modern  civilization,  but  the  strongest  reason 
possible  for  either  omitting  such  material  altogether,  or, 
where  it  takes  the  form  of  historic  narrative  essential  to  a 
realization  of  national  or  ancestral  achievement,  for  associa- 
ting it  with  a  cumulative  impression  of  the  horror  and  suffer- 
ing due  to  war.  Longfellow's  description  of  the  exile  of  the 
Acadians  after  the  burning  of  Grand  Pre,  Mary  Wilkins 
Freeman's  sensative  but  thrilling  picture  of  the  Deerfield 
massacre  in  "Patience,"  'Xogan's  Lament,"  extracts  from 
Stephen  Crane's  "Red  Badge  of  Courage,"  or  Tolstoi's 
"Stebastapool,"  Sherman's  letter  to  his  wife  from  his  first 
battlefield,  should  unite  with  the  unforgetable  lesson  taught 
by  the  artist  in  "the  Conquerors,"  with  their  inexorable  and 
remorseless  march  over  the  victims  of  war,  to  make  children 
realize,  as  strongly  as  wholesome  imagination  permits,  that 
"war  is  hell." 

4.  Necessity  for  the  Further  Exclusion  and  Continual  Rejection 
of  All  That  Is  Not  Useful  to  the  Majority  of  Individuals 
Who  Are  Not  Specialists 
So  far  as  I  know,  W.  H.  Payne  was  the  first  to  point  out 
that  Mr.  Spencer,  in  his  attempt  to  determine  the  relative 
worth  of  general  branches  of  human  knowledge  taken  as 
wholes,  has  failed  to  distinguish  between  what  is  directly  or 
immediately  useful  to  individuals  in  general,  and  what  is 
"mediately"  useful  to  the  race  through  the  speciahst.^ 
Although  the  distinction  is  a  clear  one  and  is  continually 
responsible  for  elimination,  courses  of  study  and  text-books 
are  so  largely  the  work  of  individual  specialists  that  personal 
interest  and  enthusiasm  serve  to  check  its  operation  on  the 
side  of  exclusion.  Details  are  continually  creeping  in  which 
ultimately  have  to  be  thrown  out.  In  arithmetic,  elimination 
from  that  point  of  view  is  fairly  complete.     Its  operations 


l84  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  applications  stand  out  so  prominently  that  the  first  flush 
of  criticism  revealed  those  useful  only  to  the  few.  But  in  the 
richer  subject  matter  of  science  and  history,  where  painstak- 
ing analysis  is  necessary  to  bring  out  specific  relationships, 
elimination  has  been  slower;  while  failure  to  safeguard  the 
text-book  through  exclusion  has  meant  the  persistent  influx 
of  material  which  is  judged  available  by  the  specialist,  be- 
cause it  is  new  to  the  science  or  has  not  yet  been  used  in  ele- 
mentary education,  but  which  the  test  of  direct  usefulness  to 
the  majority  must  eventually  reject. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  course  of  study  in  American 
high  schools,  an  added  evil  has  been  the  temptation  of  the 

college  or  university  graduate  to  utilize  the 
ofthe^^^  specialized  knowledge  with  which  he  is  most 
specialist  familiar,  in  the  absence  of  the  safeguards  that  can 
upon  the  come  only  with  adequate  pedagogical  training, 
course.  °       ^^^  close  and  ejficient  supervision  by  experts 

familiar  with  the  educational  problem  and  the 
local  school  system  as  wholes.  Quite  distinct  from  the  so- 
called  dominance  of  the  high  school  by  the  college  through 
uniform  entrance  requirements,  though  involved  in  it,  is  this 
indirect  influence  of  the  individual  specialist  who  trains 
secondary  school  teachers  in  his  specialty  and  writes  text- 
books for  secondary  schools,  from  the  viewpoint  of  the 
specialty  alone.  As  Professor  Hanus  heard  a  well-known 
teacher  express  it,  "An  aim?  I  have  no  aim  in  teaching !"^^ 
While  elementary  text-books  in  high  school  and  college 
are  possibly  the  worst  offenders,  the  common  school  subjects 

are  not  yet  fully  purged.  An  analytic  examina- 
stmTn-  ^^  tion  of  any  one  text  in  physiology  shows  that  the 
eludes  de-  influx  of  useful  hygienic  material  has  been  re- 
tails useful  markable,  but  when  the  sum  total  of  the  newer 
speci^sts.     "texts  and  courses  of  study  are  considered,  with 

rare  exceptions  it  is  seen  that  in  any  one  the 
presence  of  anatomical  and  physiological  technique,  mainly 
useful  through  the  skilled  physician  or  surgeon,  still  excludes 
all  but  a  fraction  of  the  directly  useful  material  which  books 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  185 

and  courses  collectively  present.  If  minute  anatomy,  the 
detailed  description  of  circulation,  specific  organic  juices, 
O.  Henry's  remembrance  of  the  shin  bone  as  the  largest  bone 
in  the  human  body,  with  happily  vague  recollections  of  glar- 
ing manikins  and  dissected  ox  eyes  are  not  rejected  on  the 
ground  that  their  usefulness  is  almost  solely  through  the 
specialist,  the  application  of  the  further  test  of  useful  many- 
sidedness  and  frequency  of  useful  recurrence  will  cast  them 
into  outer  darkness. 

The  physiographical  geography,  which  represents  the  swing 
of  the  pendulum  from  the  equal  extremes  reached  by  the  old 
geography  of  location,  is  also  ripe  for  the  pruning  knife.     It 
is  important  to  the  specialist  to  precisely  define 
headland  or  cape,  to  determine  whether  Aus-  too  inclusive 
tralia  is  continent  or  island,  to  glibly  refer  to   of  physio- 
terminal  moraine,  intermittent  spring  and  world  ^etaUs^^ 
ridge,  take  daily  observations  on  the  weather,  and 
inquire  into  the  local  conditions  modifying  climate  in  Africa 
or  South  America,  but  with  children  and  the  adult  who  is 
not  a  specialist  who  by  some  chance  continues  to  remember 
such  a  content,  it  interprets  no  ordinary  experience  and  starts 
no  associations  thronging.     It  is  not  something  to  remember 
by  and  to  think  with. 

In  history,  the  period  is  passed  in  which  people  might 
reasonably  be  expected  to  respond  to  the  old  sea  captain's 
question  in  Doyle's  '^Rodney  Stone,"  "How 
many  ships  of  the  line  at  the  battle  of  Camper-  tocTmmtary. 
down?"  but  it  still  has  in  many  texts  too  military 
a  caste.  It  is  the  cadets  at  Annapolis  and  West  Point,  not 
the  ordinary  schoolboy,  who  should  show  familiarity  with 
such  details  of  military  campaigns  as  most  pupils  of  twenty 
years  ago  have  by  this  time  forgotten. 

While,  on  the  whole,  elimination  of  specialized  material 
forced  upon  one  generation  is  likely  to  give  way  before  the 
resentful  common  sense  of  the  same  generation  grown  old, 
the  readiness  with  which  it  can  be  detected  should  prevent 
its  further  admission  into  the  common  school  course. 


l86  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

In  the  college  the  situation  affords  little  help,  so  long  as 
its  component  courses  are  so  largely  left  in  their  details  to 
The  college  ^^^  mercy  of  individual  specialists.  No  absolu- 
and  uni-        tism  is  greater  than  that  exercised  concerning 

versity  ^iis  specialty  by  the  occupant  of  an  academic 

course  i.  •/       m/  x 

dominated  chair.  When  the  details  of  subject  matter  are 
by  the  not   determined  by   the   formal   nature   of  the 

specialist.  specialty  itself,  he  can  follow  his  own  judgments 
and  interests  both  in  what  he  offers  and  in  what  he  exacts, 
whether  from  the  standpoint  of  advanced  standing  or  as  a 
condition  to  further  advancement.  The  natural  tendency 
is,  therefore,  to  specialization  within  the  specialty,  often  as 
hostile  to  its  general  mastery  as  to  direct  preparation  for  life. 
Here  the  only  remedy  is  so  authoritative  a  determination 
Determina-  ^^  ^^^  relative  worth  of  specific  relationships  or 
tion  of  rela-  types  of  relationships  composing  the  specialty, 
^^^^jfoTth  \^Qt]i  from  the  standpoint  of  direct  preparation 
remedy  for  3,nd  of  Specialization,  that  the  individual  special- 
overspecial-  ist  is  compelled  to  discriminate  between  the  rela- 
ization.  tively  less  useful  and  those  of  greater  worth. 

What  is  hardest  for  him  to  comprehend  is  that  the  usefulness 
of  details  varies  with  the  knowledge  and  experience  of  the 
learner,  in  proportion  to  the  extent  to  which  many-sidedness 
of  relationship  and  frequency  of  recurrence  is  possible. 
Material  that  is  of  the  greatest  possible  use  to  him  in  some 
phase  of  his  work  to  which  it  is  related  in  a  hundred  ways 
and  in  which  it  is  continually  recurring,  may  be,  through  the 
absence  of  such  many-sidedness  and  recurrence,  of  little  or 
no  use  in  the  specialty  as  a  whole  and  of  practically  none 
whatever  outside  of  it. 

In  the  last  analysis,  elimination,  on  the  ground  of  only 
indirect  or  mediate  usefulness,  reduces  itself  to  the  rejection 
of  relationships  so  low  in  relative  many-sidedness  and  re- 
currence that  their  relative  uselessness  can  be  readily  detected 
without  exact  comparison. 


CULTURE  DtSCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  187 

5.  All  Material  Must  Be  Rejected  Which  is  Being  Effectively 
Taught  Outside  the  School,  or  Which  Cannot  Be  Effectively 
Taught  in  the  School 

The  rejection  of  material  on  the  ground  that  it  is  being 
effectively  taught  outside  the  school  or  institution  con- 
cerned, or  that  it  cannot  be  effectively  taught  within  the 
school,  has  been  more  frequently  used  to  exclude  relation- 
ships that  the  school  ought  to  teach  than  those  that  it. 
cannot. 

In  general,  it  is  safe  to  assert  that  since  education  is  a 
continuing  process  and  development  continually  going  on, 
every  institution  which  can  exercise  an  educational  function 
in  the  direction  of  any  phase  of  the  educational  aim  should 
exercise  it.  That  is,  regardless  of  the  shifting  responsibility 
that  changing  industrial,  social,  and  political  conditions  have 
imposed  throughout  the  history  of  civilization  and  will 
continue  to  impose,  upon  family,  community,  church,  social 
classes,  state  or  organized  industry  and  philanthropy,  each 
institution  having  the  educational  function  must,  in  the  way 
for  which  it  is  best  fitted,  concern  itself  with  each  phase  of  the 
educational  aim.  A  particular  institution  may  j«^^.jj  g^^j^j 
cease  to  have  any  educational  function  at  all,  institution 
either  because  it  fails  to  reach  individuals  during  °^^^*  teach 
the  period  of  formal  instruction,  or  because  they  of  the  edu^-^ 
are  given  over  to  some  other  institution  that  can  cational 
perform  the  same  service  more  economically  and  *^°^* 
effectively.  But  so  long  as  it  controls  some  part  of  life  for 
those  who  are  to  be  taught,  and  can  perform  in  a  different 
way  the  same  service  that  some  other  institution  may  be 
performing  more  completely  and  effectively,  it  must  do  its 
supplementary  part.  No  phase  of  the  educational  aim  will 
approach  complete  realization  in  the  development  of  the 
great  mass  of  individuals  unless  home,  church  and  school 
co-operate  with  every  other  form  of  educational  activity  that 
touches  the  life  of  the  learner  to  bring  the  greatest  possible 
sum  total  of  instruction  to  bear. 


188  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

This,  however,  does  not  mean  that  various  social  institu- 
tions responsible  for  education  should  teach  the  same  details 

„  ,      ^        or  the  same  relationships.     The  church,  for  ex- 

But  each  ,  ,  i         i  .    .      , 

should  not     ample,  must  teach  creed,  and  it  is  the  very  argu- 

teach  the  ment  of  continuity  that  leads  the  Roman  Catho- 
taS^  ^^^  church  to  insist  upon  teaching  it  in  home  and 

school,  and  various  other  Christian  denominations 
to  resist  the  elimination  of  Christian  literature  and  worship 
from  the  public  school  system.  But,  whatever  be  the  out- 
come of  the  approaching  political  struggle  from  the  standpoint 
of  creed,  whether  or  not  the  parochial  school  system  is  recog- 
nized by  the  state,  and  the  public  school  system  is  secularized 
or  Christianized,  religion  must  be  taught  in  school.  The 
reverence  for  deity,  obedience  to  divine  law%  and  faith  in  pro- 
vidence essential  to  all  religions  are  likely  to  be  beaten  down 
by  the  force  of  hostile  elements  in  modern  life,  if  the  school, 
in  its  teaching  of  history  and  literature,  fails  to  utilize  the 
emotional  record  of  deeds  and  examples  that  inspire  men  to 
worship.  The  church  may  exact  the  bowed  head  on  passing 
the  cathedral  door,  the  bended  knee  before  the  image  of  a 
saint  or  imageless  chancel  rail,  and  teach  the  omniscience  of 
God  from  catechism  and  psalter.  The  school  can  tell  of 
Washington's  praying  alone  in  the  snowdrifts  at  Valley 
Forge,  of  Lincoln's  faith  in  divine  providence  throughout  the 
Civil  War,  and  the  devotion  of  Father  Breboeuf,  or  teach, 
with  the  added  influence  of  song,  Bryant's  "Forest  Hymn," 
Longfellow's  "King  Robert  of  Sicily"  or  "Sir  Humphrey 
Gilbert." 

But  there  is  no  reason  why  home,  church,  and  school 
should  teach  the  same  relationships  or  details.  Dr.  Hall's 
The  school  Study  of  "Children's  Minds  on  Entering  School" 
has  no  has  probably  been  as  often  used  to  justify  the 

*^"^®  *^  reteaching  of  what  children  already  know  as  to 

tails  well"  show  the  need  of  the  Herbartian  discovery  and 
taught  else-  "preparation"  of  what  is  already  in  children's 
where.  minds  to  ensure  the  apperception  of  what  is 

taught.     Dr.  John  Dewey's  analysis  of  the  mental  steps  in- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  189 

volved  in  forming  the  number  concept^^  has  undoubtedly, 
here  and  there,  led  to  laborious  instruction  intended  to  de- 
velop arithmetical  generalizations  made  long  before  outside 
the  school.  Local  geography  of  a  sort  that  every  book  agent, 
owner  of  a  motor  car,  or  shipping  clerk  can  and  will  get  for 
himself,  wastes  time  in  the  same  way;  drill  in  the  use  of  city 
directories  and  telephone  books  comes  in  the  same  category. 
There  is  too  much  that  the  school  must  do,  if  it  is  not  to  re- 
main undone,  to  include  what  is  well  attended  to  outside — 
practical  though  such  instruction  may  appear.  It  is  from 
this  point  of  view  that  Dr.  Harris'  old  argument  for  the  three 
R's  is  continually  reaffirmed  by  citizens  who  look  upon  every 
new  undertaking  of  the  school  as  superfluity  or  *^fad."  It 
is  time  for  them  to  realize  that,  owing  to  the  lessened  educa- 
tional function  of  other  institutions,  the  fact  that,  legally  at 
least,  it  reaches  every  individual,  and  the  increasing  efficiency 
of  its  teaching  force,  the  school  must  increasingly  concern 
itself  with  the  direct  furtherance  of  vital  ends  to  which  the 
three  R's  themselves  are  but  highly  useful  means  and  with 
which  they  must  not  conflict. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  school  must  include  in  its 
course  of  instruction  details  of  morality,  citizenship,  or  what 
not  which  it  cannot  effectively  teach,  or  that  the  r^^^  school 
home  and  other  institutions  should  carry  on  a  must  not 

lessened  task  where  they  can  substitute  a  different  assume 

^  .  1.11  •  .      work  which 

one.     Courses  m  courtship,  absurd  as  too  imagi-  it  cannot 

native  conceptions  of  their  possible  content  may  effectively 
be,  have  greater  likelihood  of  efficiency  with  ^^^®' 
young  women  in  the  secondary  school  than  the  training  in 
the  care  and  nurture  of  children  urged  by  Mr.  Spencer,  which 
should  either  be  given  by  agencies  outside  the  school  to  those 
who  are  normally  interested  as  wives  or  mothers,  or  confined 
in  the  school  to  the  * 'little  mothers"  of  nine  or  ten,  who  natu- 
rally graduate  from  doll  nursing  to  the  care  of  younger  broth- 
ers and  sisters.  On  the  other  hand,  the  mere  fact  that,  owing 
to  changing  economic  and  social  conditions,  the  home  outside 
the  farm  can  no  longer  give  the  boy  the  rigid  training  to 


IQO  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

industrial  routine  which  formerly  resulted  from  chopping 
kindling,  pumping  water,  running  errands,  and  going  for  the 
mail,  is  no  reason  why  there  cannot  be  substituted  the  more 
varied  tasks,  along  the  line  of  manipulation  and  repair  which 
would  be  made  possible  by  an  adequate  course  in  domestic 
science  or  training  which  a  later  chapter  suggests  for  the 
school. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

APPLICATION  OF  THE  TEST  OF  RELATIVE  WORTH  FROM  THE 
STANDPOINT  OF  ALL  FORMAL  SELF-ACTIVITY  WHICH  IS 
INDIRECTLY    USEFUL 

After  all,  as  is  made  clear  enough  at  the  start,  principles 
of  elimination  can  only  reject  the  most  obviously  useless  or 
harmful  material.  Elimination,  as  well  as  selection,  must, 
for  the  most  part,  result  from  the  determination  of  the  rela- 
tive worth  of  specific  relationships.  The  three  principles  in- 
volved must  be  successively  applied  from  the  standpoint  of 
the  five  phases  of  formal  self-activity,  direct  furtherance, 
and  specialization. 

I.  Application  of  the  Test  to  Relationships  Intended  to  Further 
Cumulative  Impression 

The  material  most  useful,  from  the  standpoint  of  cumula- 
tive impression,   is   chiefly  measured  through  the   degree 
of  resulting  sensation  or  emotion.     It  is  not  it,   degree  of 
but  the  relationship  to  which  it  is  intended  to   sensation  or 
give  emotional  force,  whose  usefulness  depends  f^°*}°.^f 
upon  many-sidedness  and  frequency  of  recurrence,   measure  of 
Yet  where  the  emotional  material  itself  is  also   cumulative 
many-sided  or  frequently  recurring,  as  in  the  *°^P^®ssion. 
case  of  a  poem  which  illustrates  many  essential  truths,  or  a 
painting  which  is  constantly  alluded  to  or  reproduced,  its 
own  value  is  increased. 

It  is  from  the  standpoint  of  cumulative  impression  and 
mere  remembrance  alone  that  comparative  worth  does  not 
ignore  the  greater  readiness  with  which  resulting  sensation 

191 


192  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

or  emotion  causes  a  relationship  to  be  memorized  or  re- 
tained. The  test  for  the  inclusion  of  material  in  the  e^- 
sential  content  is  relative  usefulness,  not  relative  ease  of 
mastery.  If  relationships  are  useful  enough  to  result  in 
specific  discipline,  it  will  be  assured  through 
pres^sion'  effective  method.  It  does  not  matter  how 
and  re-  readily    acquired   and   persistent    impressibility 

fSrtherer^  may  make  them,  if  it  does  not  increase  their 
by  impres-  usefulness.  On  the  other  hand,  optional  content, 
sibility  and  wholly  dependent  for  initial  retention  on  the 
ofVastery.  ^^^^  remembrance  to  which  it  is  a  means,  is 
more  useful,  if  interest  and  impressiveness  tend 
to  hold  it  in  mind.  Of  course,  the  mere  readiness  of 
mastery,  which  works  against  interest  and  impressiveness, 
is  useless  even  to  mere  remembrance. 

The  form  of  sensational  or  emotional  appeal  which  counts 
the  most  varies  with  the  relationship  that  is  to  be  made  im- 
Form  of  pressive  and  must  be  adapted  to  it.  Description 
emotional  of  emotional  action,  literature,  eloquence,  music, 
appeal  must  dramatic  imitation,  allusion,  visual  representa- 
to  the  rela-  ^^^^  through  picture,  model,  or  sculpture — some- 
tionship  to     times  one  and  sometimes  the  other,  but,  so  far 

be  made        ^^g  possible,  all  must  be  brought  to  bear  whenever 
impressive,     .i,.,...  ^  i^. 

the  relationship  is  important  enough  for  its  emo- 
tional associations  to  be  made  sure.  From  among  the  forms 
that  are  possible  those  illustrations  and  examples  must  be 
selected  which  are  not  only  in  themselves  emotional,  but 
which  are  emotional  in  the  highest  degree  and  with  the 
greatest  many-sidedness  and  frequency  of  recurrence  possible 
to  each  form,  and  which  carry  their  sensation  or  emotion  over 
to  the  thing  to  be  emotionalized. 

Below  the  upper  limit  of  useful  emotion,  however,  the 
determining  factor  is  the  relative  degree  of  emotional  interest 
thus  transferred.  The  many-sidedness  of  relationship  and 
frequency  of  recurrence  of  General  Grant,  re-enforcing  the 
degree  of  feeling  aroused  through  the  story  of  his  prompt  sub- 
mission to  the  game  warden,  makes  it  more  likely  to  be  re- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  193 

called,  by  American  boys  at  least,  and  hence  more  likely  to 
be  retained  as  an  active  contributor  to  the  wish  to  be  obedient 
to  law,  while  that  of  Prince  Henry  and  the  Chief  Justice  will 
similarly  persist  in  the  imagination  of  one  familiar  with  Eng- 
lish history  or  Shakesperian  drama.  The  emotional  appeal 
being  sufficiently  high  in  the  two  cases  in  question  for  them  to 
be  unquestionably  included  from  the  emotional  point  of  view 
alone,  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  become  determining. 
An  illustration  less  many-sided  or  recurring,  but  of  equal 
emotional  interest,  would  not  be  so  useful.  But  if  one  inci- 
dent was  of  much  greater  emotional  interest  than  the  other, 
its  emotional  appeal  would  be  determimng,  since  m  order  to 
utihze  it  instruction  can  make  it  more  permanent  than  inci- 
dental recurrence;  where  emotion  should  be  high  in  degree 
as  well  as  persistent  through  a  cumulative  sum  total,  degree 
is  even  still  more  determining. 

The  mere  concreting  of  an  emotional  idea  or  of  a  conception 
in  which  interest  is  to  be  aroused — a  sword  of  Bunker  Hill,  a 
silver  franc  inscribed  with  the  head  of  Louis  the  Sixteenth, 
a  fragment  of  the  CoUiseum — all  serve,  in  greater  or  lesser 
degree,  like  the  button  from  a  uniform  or  a  lock  of  hair,  to 
increase  an  emotion  that  already  exists,  even  though  an  ob- 
ject or  a  fragment  which,  in  the  absence  of  association,  is  of 
little  use  or  no  interest. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  humorous  or  pathetic  story  or  an 
attractive  object  may  in  itself  possess  an  interest  or  result  in 
an  emotion  which  actually  distracts  attention  from  the  thing 
illustrated  or  exemplified.  This  is,  of  course,  always  true 
when  the  added  interest  is  wholly  in  the  illustration,  as  when 
children  count  some  new  and  attractive  objects  without  motive 
for  interest  in  their  number.  It  is,  after  all,  the  method  of 
instruction  and  not  merely  the  application  of  the  test  of 
emotional  worth  that  ultimately  determines  whether  the 
music  of  the  minuet  will  make  one  think  of  dances  quite  out- 
side of  histories  and  schools,  or  call  to  mind  the  fragrance  of 
bayberry  candles,  the  rustle  of  colonial  poplins,  the  gleam  of 
India  brocades  and  powdered  queues. 

13 


194  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Where  cumulative  impression  has  for  its  aim  aesthetic 
judgment  and  appreciation,  the  enjoyment  of  the  emo- 
Master-  tional  material  is  an  end  in  itself,  though,  as 
pieces  of  art  has  been  already  urged,  the  masterpiece  of 
°^h-^ V^f ^^^  literature  or  of  art  is  the  more  useful  when  it 
ther  aU  "  ^^so  serves  to  strengthen  an  ideal  or  to  give 
phases  of  added  interest  to  what  directly  furthers  not 
right  living,  c^lt^].e  alone,  but  industry,  morality,  or  pa- 
triotism as  well. 

While  self-expression  in  the  sense  of  skill,  whether  aesthetic 
or  narrowly  utilitarian,  belongs  to  direct  furtherance  and 
specialization,  the  pleasure  or  self-satisfaction  which  accom- 
panies individual  right  activity  not  yet  become  habitual,  or 
purposeful  imitation  of  what  is  being  made  ideal,  should  be 
utilized  as  an  important  factor  in  cumulative  impression.  On 
propitious  occasions  it  should  be  stimulated  through  congrat- 
ulation and  applause  to  the  emotional  pitch  of  happiness  in 
what  has  given  pleasure  to  others  and  of  wholesome  pride  in 
self-achievement. 

Finally,  impression  is  re-enforced  by  the  milder  interest 
which  arises  from  the  ease  of  accomplishment  that  comes 
with  right  habit,  and  the  similar  feeling  due  to  physiological 
readiness  in  apperception  itself.  On  this  side,  interest  is 
dependent  upon  recurring  experience  or  method  of  instruction. 

But  while  interest  can  be  thus  developed  by  method  in  any 
relationship  that  is  useful,  and  no  relationship  that  is  useless 
or  harmful  can  be  made  useful  through  interest,  it  is  none 
the  less  true  that  until  cumulative  impression  is  strong 
enough  to  make  a  useful  idea  sufficiently  dominant  to  serve 
as  the  motive  force  for  general  discipline,  the  relative  useful- 
ness of  material  which  re-enforces  it  is  largely  determined 
by  its  relative  degree  of  interest,  feeling,  or  emotion.  In 
ensuring  cumulative  impression  it  is  the  most  emotional 
examples  and  illustrations  that  should  be  made  certain 
through  specific  descipUne,  regardless  of  their  many-sided- 
ness or  recurrence,  except  where  they  are  approximately 
equal  in  their  emotional  appeal. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  195 

2.  Relative  Worth  from  the  Standpoint  of  Mere  Remembrance 

Three  distinctions  are  prerequisite  to  the  application  of  the 
test  for  relative  worth  from  the  standpoint  of  mere  remem- 
brance— the  distinction  between  optional  and  essential  rela- 
tionships, between  ultimate  and  immediate  usefulness,  and 
between  directly  or  specifically  useful  and  generally  or  vari- 
ably useful  material.  Since  an  essential  relationship  is  ulti- 
mately to  be  made  certain  through  specific  discipline,  it 
belongs  to  mere  remembrance  as  well  only  during  the  period 
in  which  it  is  held  in  mind  as  a  partial  concept  through  a  rela- 
tionship which  for  the  time  being  does  not  perform  the  further 
function  of  apperception.  Until  the  name  California  begins 
to  be  cumulatively  apperceived,  it  remains  in  the  stage  of 
mere  remembrance,  even  though  it  is  definitely  held  in  mind 
by  a  whole  primary  school  class  through  a  common  and 
specific  association  with  orange-growing,  in  place  of  or  in  ad- 
dition to  incidental  or  optional  associations  varying  with  the 
individual  pupil. 

Whether  optional  or  essential,  the  usefulness  of  a  relation- 
ship is  immediate,  if  it  is  likely  to  recur  occasionally  or  to 
become  a  center  for  new  associations  before  it  is  ^^  ^^^^ 
forgotten.     In  the  case  of  the  optional  relation-   mere  re- 
ship  not  made  certain  through  the  formal  repe-   ^p^P^^J""^® 
titions  of  instruction,  immediacy  of  interest  being  material 
necessary  to  attention  and  retention,  conditions  must  be  im- 
immediacy  of  usefulness.     Its  interest,  however,   ^/g^Jfi*®^^ 
may  spring  from  its  many-sidedness  rather  than 
from  inherent  sensational  or  emotional  appeal.     In  the  case 
of  the  essential  relationships,  retained  as  partial  concepts 
through  repetition  and  review,   immediacy  of    usefulness 
through  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  can  be  ignored  only 
if  so  few  essential  relationships  are  immediately  useful  as  to 
make  the  task  of  future  memorizing  too  great  through  failure 
to  utihze  not  only  the  time  available  for  memorizing  and 
review  in  the  earlier  stages  of  development,  but  the  greater 
interest  that  children  possess  in  mechanical  memorizing,  re- 


196  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

collection,  and  remembrance  before  their  interests  are  de- 
termined by  a  continually  broadening  mental  content. 
For  the  purposes  of  mere  remembrance,  then,  optional  mate- 
rial must  be  immediately  useful;  that  is,  immediately  many- 
sided  or  recurring  and  immediately  interesting.  But  essen- 
tial material  should  possess  a  many-sidedness  and  recurrence 
partially  immediate,  unless  the  ultimate  memorizing  of  the 
greatest  possible  sum  total  of  essential  relationships  demands 
the  utilization  of  all  time  effective  for  memorizing  and 
review  throughout  the  course,  and  hence  of  the  immediate 
interest  in  memory  work  peculiar  to  the  early  school  years. 
When  the  test  is  actually  applied,  however,  an  abundance  of 
essential  relationships  will  almost  certainly  be  discovered 
whose  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  are  partially  immediate 
and  capable  of  being  taught  through  method  that  will  ensure 
maximum  interest. 

Now,  it  is  highly  important,  both  to  useful  apperception 
and  general  discipline,  that  each  highly  useful  concept,  as  a 
Essential  whole,  should  be  given  the  greater  permanence 
relation-  and  associative  re-enforcement  that  comes  with 
ships  need  the  continuity  possible  through  the  early  mastery 
tive  force  '  ^^^^  ^^  ^^  mere  word  denoting  a  partial  essential 
possible  concept.  If  the  concept  is  emotional,  cumula- 
from  early  ^ive  impression  gradually  comes  to  give  it  a  dy- 
namic force  that  is  irresistible.  Even  in  the  ab- 
sence of  emotional  associations,  its  persistent  many-sidedness 
involves  at  each  recall  the  general  stirring  of  mental  content, 
which  Kiilpe  says  results  in  direct  recognition,  and  which  lies 
at  the  heart  of  Herbartian  interest.  The  idea  has  become  a 
part  of  life  and  of  character  in  a  sense  that  is  impossible  when 
it  is  not  memorized  until  it  can  be  fully  understood.  From 
the  standpoint  of  mere  remembrance  it  cannot  too  early 
begin  its  function  of  accumulating  and  holding  in  mind 
otherwise  mere  fugitive  or  less  usefully  related  ideas  in  re- 
lationships that  directly  and  permanently  further  the  edu- 
cational aim. 

The  function  of  the  word  denoting  a  partial  essential  con- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  197 

cept  that  is  indirectly  and  generally  useful,  is  to  hold  ideas  in 
mind  in  relationships  which  may  not  in  them- 
selves be  directly  useful,  but  which  further  a  ^u^^^Xe 
complete  and  variable  apperception,  and  hence  associations 
the  mental  interrelationship  that  assures  inter-  a  means  to 
communication  between  them  and  any  field  of  byTfor  op- 
knowledge  and  experience.     From  the  standpoint  tional  rela- 
of  mere  remembrance,  essential  ideas,  whether  Jionships, 
directly  or  indirectly  useful,  being  themselves  cer-  membered. 
tainly  retained,  use  their  cumulative  many-sided- 
ness, recurrence,  and  consequent  interest  as  means  to  remem- 
ber by.     Optional  relationships,  on  the  other  hand,  use  their 
immediate  many-sidedness,  recurrence,  and  interest  as  means 
to  being  themselves  remembered — if  by  directly  useful  ideas, 
with  the  result  of  strengthening  the  dominance  of  some  cen- 
tral relationship  through  the  centripetal  phase  of  appercep- 
tion; if  by  indirectly  useful  ideas,  with  the  result  of  more 
completely  interrelating  all  ideas  and  so  indirectly  ensuring 
through  the  centrifugal  force  of    apperception,  the  more 
general  application  and  dominance  of  the  useful.     Hence, 
the  test  for  the  selection  of  material  useful  for  mere  remem- 
brance concerns   itself  with  essential  relationships  whether 
directly  or  indirectly  useful,  that  are  to  be  made  certain  as  the 
means  to  the  mere  memorizing  of  others,  and  with  optional 
relationships  that  are  themselves  to  be  remembered.     The 
test  for  these  three  classes  of  ideas  is  in  part  identical.     In 
the  case  of  both  essential  and  optional  relationships,  ultimate 
many-sidedness,  frequency  of  recurrence,  and  degree  of  sensa- 
tional or  emotional  effect  are  determining  for  selection  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  course  of  study  as  a  whole,  but  the  point 
in  the  course  of  study  at  which  they  shall  be   when  par- 
first  memorized  is  fixed  for  essential  material  by  tial  mas- 
the  immediacy  of  merely  occasional  recurrence  *®^y  ^^"^J 
and  very  partial  many-sidedness,  which  certainty  by  ^mmedi- 
of  retention  will  make  cumulative;  and  for  op-  acyofuse- 
tional  material  by  an  immediacy  of  recurrence  ^"^^®^^- 
and  interest  without  which  there  is  little  apparent  chance  of 


198  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

retention  at  all.  Every  idea  presented  to  the  mind,  over  and 
above  what  instruction  can  ensure,  has  some  chance  of  being 
retained,  and  may  constitute  a  connecting  link  in  some  series 
of  associations  whose  new  or  exceptional  usefulness  no  test  for 
relative  worth  can  anticipate.  It  is  the  task  of  instruction  to 
make  certain  the  retention  of  those  whose  direct  or  indirect 
usefulness  in  high  degree  can  be  foreseen,  and  to  make  as 
probable  as  possible  the  mere  remembrance  of  those  im- 
mediately many-sided  and  recurring  enough  to  be  retained, 
if  they  are  even  for  but  a  little  time  held  in  mind. 

The  importance  of  this  initial  memorizing  or  holding  in 
mind  is  the  justification  of  the  usual  attempt  to  get  from  the 
Discrimina-  l^^^rner  all  that  text-book  and  lecture  have  pre- 
tion  in  sented.  That  is,  in  the  first  recitation  upon  matter 

recitation       ^^^^  presented,  the  teacher  is  justified  in  his 

between  es*" 

sential  and    customary  effort  to  see  that  his  pupils  or  students 

optional  re-  are  getting  it  all,  if  he  will  discriminate  between 
ations  ps.  ^j^g  ideas  which  they  must  permanently  retain 
in  specific  relationships  and  those  which  it  will  be  useful  for 
them  to  retain  in  any  relationship  at  all.  But  each  idea  cho- 
sen from  this  material  not  made  certain  through  recurring 
review,  which  is  to  be  given  the  best  chance  of  survival,  must 
be  recurring  in  some  relationship  or  other  in  the  immediate 
experience  of  the  learners,  and  its  chance  of  persistence  is 
greatly  increased  if  that  relationship  is  an  interesting  one  or 
if  the  material  itself  is  inherently  interesting  through  its 
sensational  or  emotional  appeal.  Many-sidedness  is  a  test 
of  only  ultimate  usefulness,  unless  it  results  in  immediate 
interest  or  recurrence. 

3.  Genetic  Conditions  Determining  Only  for  Optional  Material 

It  is  only  from  the  viewpoint  of  cumulative  impression, 
mere  remembrance  and  hence  varying  apperception,  and  in 
the  determination  of  the  point  in  the  course  of  study  at  which 
optional  material  shall  be  introduced,  that  readiness  of 
mastery  or  immediacy  of  interest  due  to  genetic  conditions. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  199 

"nascent  period"  or  culture  epoch,  determine  selection. 
Where  relationships  are  not  so  many-sided,  recurring  or 
high  in  degree  of  permanently  useful  feeling  or  emotion  as  to 
be  included  in  the  essential  content  whose  retention  will  be 
compelled,  those  which  appeal  to  innate  tendencies  and  in- 
herent interest  limited  to  some  stage  of  development  or 
strongest  at  such  a  stage,  have  the  greatest  likelihood  of 
mere  remembrance.  Given  approximately  equal  worth 
from  the  standpoint  of  many-sidedness  and  recurrence,  those 
relationships  should  be  selected  for  impressive  presentation 
at  each  period  of  advancement  which  have  through  interest 
the  best  chance  of  survival.  Indeed,  relationships  relatively 
less  recurring  in  themselves  or  through  immediate  many- 
sidedness,  should  be  included  on  the  strength  of  high  degree 
of  immediate  interest,  unless  they  exclude  from  effective 
presentation  others  whose  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  are 
immediate  enough  to  ensure  not  only  mere  remembrance,  but 
cumulative  apperception.  Of  course,  the  brightly  colored, 
the  beautifully  formed,  the  fragrant  or  what  offends  through 
its  odor,  things  pleasant  or  repugnant  to  the  taste  or  touch, 
whatever  makes  one  laugh  or  weep,  angry  or  ashamed,  enjoy- 
able or  unpleasant  activities,  are  likely,  for  a  time  at  least, 
to  be  held  in  mind,  but  even  lengthy  and  meaningless  words 
which  are  rhythmical  or  sonorous — the  Constantinoples 
and  Popocatapetls  of  childish  vocabularies — tend  to  remain 
in  the  memory  when  more  many-sided  and  even  frequently 
recurring  ideas,  through  lack  of  impressiveness,  pass  in  one 
ear  and  out  the  other.  Here  remembrance  is  not  left  solely 
to  chance.  It  is  either  made  reasonably  probable  through 
the  sensational  or  emotional  appeal  of  the  presentation  as  a 
whole  to  some  tendency  or  capacity  known  to  be  in  the  mind, 
or  made  more  readily  possible  through  a  many-sided  pre- 
sentation in  the  hope  of  increasing  the  chance  of  association 
with  a  mental  content  that  is  either  variable  or  unknown. 


200  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

4.  Words  the  Most   Useful  Material  from  the  Standpoint  of 
Mere  Remembrance 

The  material  chiefly  useful  from  the  standpoint  of  mere 
remembrance  is  words.  They  are  the  symbols  or  counters 
by  which  otherwise  fugitive  experiences  are  individually  held 
in  memory,  called  to  mind,  and  apperceived.  Each  word  that 
is  retained  becomes  a  center  for  the  retention  of  the  idea  or 
group  of  ideas  for  which  it  stands,  for  the  words  that  express 
them,  and  for  other  words  and  ideas.  Growth  of  vocabulary, 
therefore,  no  matter  how  partial  the  concept  retained,  is  an 
index  not  only  of  mere  remembrance,  but  of  readiness  of 
varying  apperception,  and  hence  of  the  possible  range  of 
general  discipline.  The  ability  to  write  words  greatly  in- 
creases the  possibility  though  not  the  certainty  of  both  mere 
remembrance  and  specific  discipline.  The  habit  of  quickly 
jotting  down  expressions  or  ideas  that  otherwise  stand  little 
likelihood  of  being  recalled,  merely  gives  further  opportunity 
for  getting  them  in  mind.  When  note-taking  is  regarded  as 
Note-tak-  ^^  ^^^  ^^  itself,  especially  the  taking  of  lecture 
ing  ensures  notes,  it  actually  interferes  with  retention, 
mere  re-  whether  partial  or  exact,  by  distracting  attention 
mem  ranee.  ^^^^  ideas  and  breaking  in  on  the  continuity  of 
discourse.  Where  the  lecturer  puts  essential  propositions 
into  a  syllabus  that  can  be  memorized,  and  note-taking  con- 
cerns itself  with  otherwise  evanescent  ideas  that  will  later 
become  the  objects  of  thought  and  reflection,  the  purpose 
of  mere  remembrance  is  better  served. 

Of  course,  abihty  to  write  involves  ability  to  spell,  and  has 
its  usefulness  conditioned  by  ability  to  read  what  is  written. 
Furthermore,  reading  is  in  itself  the  most  important  means  to 
multiplication  of  vocabulary  and  hence  to  mere  remembrance, 
as  well  as  to  varying  apperception  and  general  discipline. 
Travel,  conversation  with  well-educated  or  broadly  expe- 
rienced people,  attendance  upon  public  lectures,  all  serve  the 
same  end. 

Ability  to  read  and  to  write  are  general  in  their  usefulness, 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  20I 

and  must  ultimately  be  acquired  without  regard  to  the  rela- 
tive value  of  individual  words.  For  them  the  relative  many- 
sidedness  and  recurrence  of  words  are  determining  only  in  the 
earlier  stages  of  instruction  where  but  a  limited  number  of 
particular  words  can  be  formed  or  recognized.  In  the  end, 
it  is  phonograms  that  must  be  sounded  out  and  blended  and 
sequences  of  letters  that  must  be  as  frequently  recurring  and 
many-sided  as  thought  itself.  Spelling,  too,  must  finally 
involve  the  ability  to  perceive  and  to  write  any  word  phonet- 
ically and  the  habit  of  observing  phonetic  exceptions  in  all 
new  words  that  are  remembered.  In  so  far  as  the  spelling 
work  of  the  school  aims  to  ensure  the  correct  writing  of  spe- 
cific lists  of  words  and  to  make  necessary  the  selection  of 
particular  words  to  be  drilled  upon,  spelling  belongs  to  the 
essential  rather  than  the  optional  content  of  mere  The  test  for 
remembrance.  But,  both  in  specific  spelling  and  relative 
where  particular  words  in  word-study  and  dis-  pUesto^the 
cussion  are  to  be  presented  to  the  learner  in  the  selection  of 
hope  of  mere  remembrance  through  some  inci-  ^°*^  essen- 
dental  and  individual  relationship,  the  principles  tional  spell- 
of  selection  hold.  It  is  here  that  the  multiplicity  ing  words, 
of  words  connected  with  regular  school  work  and  supple- 
mentary reading  can  be  drawn  upon,  not  for  spelling  drill  and 
review  reserved  for  those  most  essential,  but  to  be  held  in 
memory  as  wholes  until  they  come  under  the  operation  of  the 
habits  necessary  to  the  spelling  of  words  not  drilled  upon  in 
school.  The  words,  whether  to  be  memorized  as  wholes  or 
both  memorized  and  spelled,  must  be  more  or  less  many-sided 
and  occasionally  recurring,  but  as  distinct  from  those  whose 
mere  remembrance  in  some  partial  relationship  is  essential 
to  direct  preparation,  need  not  be  certainly  useful.  Where 
they  are  equally  many-sided  or  recurring,  the  degree  of  im- 
mediate feeling  or  emotion  inherent  in  them  or  due  to  a  rela- 
tionship with  other  ideas,  which  is  made  conspicuous  in  pre- 
sentation, is  determining.  Foreign  products  in  geography 
that  can  be  related  to  some  familiar  use  to  which  they  are 
put,  words  in  a  foreign  vocabulary  that  are  in  themselves 


202  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

beautiful  or  occur  in  the  titles  of  familiar  masterpieces 
of  music,  literature  or  art,  should  be  selected  in  preference 
to  those  equally  many-sided  and  recurring,  but  not  equally 
likely  to  be  retained  through  feeling.  The  manysidedness 
may  be  more  or  less  remote,  and  make  possible  the  grad- 
ual broadening  of  concepts  as  the  years  go  by.  Recur- 
rence, too,  need  not  be  immediate  in  determining  the  selec- 
tion of  words  that  are  to  form  a  part  of  content  in  general 
without  regard  to  the  stage  of  development  at  which  they  are 
introduced,  but  in  determining  their  place  in  the  course  of 
study,  recurrence  must  be  immediate  or  mere  remembrance 
cannot  be  depended  upon  to  continue  to  hold  them  in  mind. 

It  is  especially  useful,  for  example,  to  utilize  the  interest 
which  a  boy  has  in  things  warlike,  to  present  to  him  through 
reading  and  story  such  military  terms  as  will  be  used  in  his 
history  before  the  end  of  the  term  or  the  school  year. 

While  words  and  ideas  so  high  in  their  relative  usefulness 
that  they  should  be  certainly  remembered  as  early  as  possible 
though  in  a  partial  relationship,  are,  through  the  definiteness 
of  that  relationship,  a  phase  of  specific  discipline,  they  are 
none  the  less  a  means  to  mere  remembrance.  From  this 
point  of  view,  their  ultimate  many-sidedness  or  recurrence 
must,  of  course,  be  of  the  highest  and  partially  immediate, 
whether  direct  or  indirect  in  its  usefulness. 

On  the  side  of  both  direct  and  indirect  usefulness,  invalu- 
able assistance  is  given  to  mere  remembrance,  and  hence 
General  ^o  varying  apperception  and  general  discipline, 
ideas  and  by  definitely  fixing  ideas  in  classes  through  general 
foricafand  *  similarity  in  use  or  meaning,  and  general  associa- 
geograph-  tion  in  historic  periods  and  geographical  locality, 
ical  loca-  xhe  same  function  is  served  in  part  by  arti- 

sequences  ficial  mnemonic  systems,  but  without  the  invalu- 
as  memory-  able  furtherance  of  varying  apperception  and 
centers.  general  discipline  which  will  be  fully  illustrated 
in  discussing  the  application  of  the  test  for  selection  to  the 
former.  What  is  certainly  held  in  mind  is  not  only  for  the 
sake  of  having  something  to  remember  by,  but  to  think  with. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  203 

From  this  standpoint  of  apperception,  association  with  the 
general  idea  or  logical  group  is  direct,  and,  while  ensuring 
rational  recall,  does  not  necessarily  tend  to  more  many-sided 
reassociation  and  apperception.  The  place  of  the  new  idea  is 
fixed  and  further  attention  may  not  be  directed  to  it.  Associ- 
ation in  general  geographical  or  historical  location,  however, 
leaves  the  idea  in  close  mental  juxtaposition  with  a  great 
variety  of  others,  with  any  one  of  which  it  may  have  some- 
thing in  common. 

From  the  standpoint  of  remembrance,  the  advantage  lies 
with  the  general  idea  or  logical  group.     Where  a  name  as  a 
memory  center  makes  similarity  or  partial  iden- 
tity conspicuous,  the  cause  of  its  efficiency  for  j^g^  tends^ 
mere  remembrance  is  apparent.     Every  idea  in  to  aid  mere 
the  group  to  which  it  applies  being  partly  identi-  remem- 
cal  with  every  other,  the  memorizing  of  any  one  alone, 
means  the  partial  memorizing  of  all;  if  the  learner 
is  conscious  of  the  similarity,  classification  or  association  with 
the  memory  center  must  result  from  such  consciousness. 
The  new  word  has  as  part  of  its  form  or  meaning  something 
that  is  already  known  which  puts  it  into  association  by  sim- 
ilarity not  only  with  the  general  term,  but  with  every  other 
subordinate  word  in  a  well-remembered  group.      It  also 
possesses  as  an  added  means  to  remembrance  the  associa- 
tion through  contiguity  in  the  mind,  and  perhaps  objectively 
in  time  and  space,  upon  which  words  not  associated  with 
general  ideas  are  solely  dependent  for  remembrance  and 
recall. 

At  first  thought  it  seems  likely  that  the  words  and  rela- 
tionships most  useful  in  this  general  way  are  taught  through 
daily  experience;  that  they  are  known  to  all  just  ^jje  general 
because  they  are  many-sided,  recurring,  and  more   words  most 
or  less  interesting.     But  sharp  distinction  must  useful  as 
be  made  between  words  that  continually  recur  centers  may 
because  experience  compels  them,  and  ideas  that  fail  to  be 
would  continually  recur  in  experience  if  they  were  J^^j^    \\ 
once  associated  with  the  words  by  which  they   experience. 


204  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

could  be  identified  and  recalled.  This  distinction  is 
readily  apparent  in  the  case  of  directly  useful  ideas. 
Here  instruction,  constantly  supplementing  experience, 
adds  such  general  terms  as  prophylactic  treatment,  germs 
and  germicide,  food  adulteration,  and  antiseptic  to  sick- 
ness, pain,  food,  and  medicine  already  in  the  vocabulary  of 
every-day  life,  but  little  more  frequently  recurring  and  often 
enough  less  useful  than  the  terms  which  instruction  makes 
equally  sure.  In  the  case  of  indirectly  useful  words,  however, 
instruction  has  been  as  incidental  as  experience  itself.  Care- 
ful determination  should  be  made  of  the  relatively  few  terms 
indirectly  and  generally  so  useful  to  all  from  the  standpoint 
of  mere  remembrance  and  varying  apperception,  that  they 
should  be  certainly  memorized  in  the  most  useful  relation- 
ship which  will  hold  them  fast,  but,  if  necessary,  in  a  rela- 
tionship which  in  itself  is  not  useful  at  all.  They  will  be 
chosen  mainly  from  among  the  names  of  branches  of  human 
knowledge,  general  terms  of  science,  departments  of  literature, 
activities  of  mind  or  body,  etymological  roots,  geographical 
localities,  and  historical  periods  or  epochs. 

The  memory  centers  most  useful  in  direct  furtherance  of 
the  aim,  and,  therefore,  the  earliest  that  should  be  memor- 
ized for  its  indirect  furtherance  through  remem- 

-L^  ™««!  brance  and  apperception  will  be  determined  by 
and  groups  ,  ,         .      .   i  r        i       • 

indirectly       applymg   the   usual    prmciples    of    selection   to 

most  use-      the  subject  matter  directly  useful  to  religion, 

ory  centers'  morality,  health,  general  industry,  social  service, 

citizenship,  and  avocation.     Similar  application 

must  also  be  made  to  the  subject  matter  of  the  academic 

branches.     The  application  of  the  test  in  the  determination 

of  the  general  ideas  most  useful  as  memory  centers  in  only 

indirect  furtherance  of  the  aim  can  be  best  illustrated  at  this 

point.     Many  of  them,  of  course,  become  familiar  outside  the 

school-room.     Man,  woman,  food,  clothing,  house,  home, 

work,  play,  tree,  plant,  flowers,  fruits,  animal,  bird,  fish,  insect, 

stone,  book,  good,  bad,  and  many  other  general  terms,  each 

of  which  includes  a  multitude  of  partially  identical  or  similar 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  205 

particulars,  furnish  the  chief  means  by  which  we  remember 
new  words  and  ideas.  Botany,  as  the  science  of  plants,  zo- 
ology of  animals,  and  mineralogy  of  minerals,  as  well  as 
history  as  the  story  of  the  past,  and  geography  of  the  home 
of  man,  are  immediate  in  recurrence  and  many-sidedness  to 
children  in  the  primary  school.  Biology,  as  the  science  of 
life  and  growth,  psychology  of  the  mind,  chemistry  of  changes 
that  show  what  things  are  made  of,  and  physics  of  all  changes 
that  do  not,  have  their  immediacy  of  many-sidedness,  recur- 
rence, and  interest  a  Httle  further  along  in  the  course  of  study. 
Terms  gained  from  anthropology,  and  philology  and  from 
such  formal  subjects  as  grammar,  algebra,  and  the  higher 
mathematics,  are  not  useful  for  remembering  words  falling 
within  the  experience  of  children;  nor  do  they  contribute 
many  memory  centers  for  college  graduates.  While  psy- 
chology is  not  related  to  experiences  of  which  young  children 
are  incidentally  conscious,  it  can  as  a  general  term  readily  be 
associated  with  a  few  frequently  recurring  experiences  such 
as  sensation,  feeling,  association,  apperception  and  habit, 
of  which  they  should  be  made  conscious  in  order  that  they 
can  more  readily  further  their  own  development.  Other 
examples  of  names  standing  for  general  ideas  highly  useful, 
not  only  to  mere  remembrance  of  names  and  experiences, 
but  to  logical  classification,  are  analysis,  oxidation,  alterna- 
tive, alumnus,  author,  avocation,  solution,  adulteration, 
fiction,  travel,  encyclopedia,  agriculture,  autobiography, 
science,  anonymous,  and  exploration.  While,  as  compared 
with  each  other,  they  vary  greatly  in  recurrence,  many-sided- 
ness, and  interest,  and  in  the  immediacy  of  each,  they  are 
readily  distinguishable  in  relative  usefulness  from  the  great 
mass  of  words  from  which  they  are  selected. 

Of  the  eight  or  more  thousand  words  in  Webster's  una- 
bridged dictionary  beginning  with  "a,"  only  about  a  hundred 
not  found  in  the  every-day  vocabulary  of  the  mass  of  people 
appear  on  superficial  examination  to  contrast  sharply  with 
the  remainder  in  relative  direct  and  indirect  usefulness. 
Of  these,  fifteen  or  more,  such  as  abasement,  abbrevia- 


2o6  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

tion,  abode,  and  abridgment,  are  loosely  synonymous  with 
words  in  the  commonest  use.     Of  the  remainder,  about 

twenty,  while  frequently  recurring,  aid  but  little, 
tivelv^^small  ^^^^^S^  many-sidedness,  in  remembering  other 
number  of  words  or  ideas.  On  this  ground,  the  memorizing 
words  use-  of  such  words  as  abatement,  abdomen,  abettor, 
cry  centeS"  abeyance,  abortion,  and  absconder  may  be  safely 

left  to  optional  content.  Approximately,  fifty 
words  from  the  eight  thousand,  that  cannot  safely  be  left  to 
ordinary  experience,  stand  out  more  or  less  prominently  as 
those  useful  in  remembering  others.  As  they  are  either  in- 
cluded in  the  tests  already  given,  or  will  be  fully  represented 
in  those  that  are  to  follow,  they  have  been  referred  to  at  this 
point  only  as  a  rough  indication  of  their  probable  proportion 
when  more  accurately  determined.  The  association  of  gen- 
eral terms  thus  highly  useful  with  the  branches  of  knowledge 
to  which  they  belong  is  not  only  an  aid  to  memory,  but  the 
first  step  in  the  building  up  of  system.  In  this  manner,  solu- 
tion and  analysis  can  be  associated  with  physics;  analysis  and 
oxidation  with  chemistry;  and  author,  fiction,  travel,  auto- 
biography, and  anonymous  with  literature.  The  useful 
system  thus  embryotically  begun,  as  it  cumulatively  results 
from  the  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth,  should  be 
the  main  end  of  instruction,  and  with  its  knowledge  and 
activities  fixed  in  their  most  useful  interrelationships  and 
subordinations,  ultimately  come  to  include  all  that  education 
can  bring  to  bear  upon  life. 

The  systematic  classification  of  words,  through  association, 
with  the  parts  of  speech  and  consequent  organization  through 
Grammat-  grammatical  relationships,  at  first  thought  better 
ical  classi-  fitted  for  furthering  the  memorizing  of  words  than 
ficationand  ^]^g  system  peculiar  to  any  other  branch,  is  on 
useless  for  investigation  found  to  be  valueless.  The  use 
mere  re-  and  meaning  of  words  determines  and  suggests 
membrance.  ^-^Qir  grammatical  classifications,  rather  than 
grammatical  classification  the  meaning  and  use  of  words. 
Grammatical  classification,  however,  to  a  limited  extent  in 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  207 

English,  and  in  high  degree  in  an  inflected  language,  deter- 
mines and  hence  recalls  the  form  of  words.  This  aids  mem- 
ory in  determining  the  correct  form  in  which  words  are  to  be 
put  to  use.  Furthermore,  the  resulting  grammatical  lan- 
guage or  correctness  of  speech  is  highly  useful  in  direct 
furtherance  of  all  phases  of  life,  especially  the  cultural  and 
social.  One  is  little  likely  to  remember  a  word,  however,  by 
the  fact  that  when  used  as  an  adverb  it  ends  in  "ly,"  or  that 
it  expresses  "action,  being,  or  state  of  being.''  This  is  merely 
a  concrete  way  of  saying  that  a  very  general  term  is  little 
likely  to  suggest  an  especial  particular,  unless  at  a  stage  of 
its  mastery  when  but  few  particulars  are  known.  "Chem- 
istry" may  readily  suggest  the  few  chemical  terms  known  to 
children,  but  "verb"  or  "noun"  applies  to  almost  their  whole 
vocabulary.  When  the  grammatical  group  is  less  inclusive, 
as  in  the  case  of  pronouns  or  conjunctions,  before  the  par- 
ticulars are  classified  under  a  common  name  they  are  for  the 
most  part  too  familiar  to  need  remembering.  Number,  also, 
is  too  general  to  aid  mere  remembrance,  except  where,  in 
place  of  applying  to  varpng  combinations  of  units,  as  three 
dollars,  fifty  persons,  or  a  hundred  pear  trees,  it  suggests  such 
fixed  and  definite  numerical  combinations  as  triangles,  fifty- 
cent  pieces  or  centuries. 

While  grammatical  classification  is  negligible  as  an  aid 
to  mere  remembrance,  except  the  remembrance  of  grammat- 
ical distinctions  themselves,  etymological  group- 
ing, through  its  association  of  identical  forms  and    f^l^^^^^l 
meanings,  is  of  the  highest  value.     This  does    ing  of  high 
not  justify  the  revival  of  the  old  time  etymology    value  for 
of  the  grammar  school  with  its  effort  exhaust-    branch." 
ively  to  present  the  English  derivatives  of  Latin 
or  Greek  roots,  regardless  of  their  relative  usefulness,  but 
rather  the  certain  memorizing  in  each  school  grade  or  each 
stage  of  development,  of  the  roots  whose  many-sidedness  and 
recurrence  are  sufficiently  immediate  to  be  useful  to  mere 
remembrance.     Roots    which    frequently    recur    in    useful 


2o8  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

English  words  not  only  serve  to  recall  the  words  themselves, 
but  their  meanings  as  well. 

Distinction  must  be  made  between  etymological  roots,  as 
memory  centers  for  words  and  as  a  means  to  remembering 
their  spelling.  The  modifications  in  the  form  of  words,  due 
to  the  growth  of  a  language,  often  make  etymology  a  false 
guide  to  spelling.  The  diflSLCulty  is  easily  met  so  far  as  the 
mastery  of  specific  word  lists  in  school  is  concerned,  by  in- 
cluding among  etymological  groups  of  words  to  be  spelled 
only  those  which  etymological  analogy  will  aid. 

Outside  of  etymology,  which  itself  suggests  meaning,  and 
the  general  ideas  and  logical  groups  with  which  association 
Names  of  ^^^  ^^^^  gives  a  likelihood  of  mere  remembrance, 
general  ge-  but  of  thought  and  intelligence  as  well,  the  most 
ographical  useful  memory  centers  are  the  names  of  general 
andhis^tor-  geographical  localities  and  historical  periods. 
ical  periods  The  extent  to  which  they  approach  the  exact  and 
as  memory  ^^le  particular  is  determined  solely  by  the  extent 
to  which  the  experience  of  learners  includes  de- 
tails that  can  be  usefully  remembered  by  them.  That  is, 
it  is  determined  by  the  immediate  many-sidedness  and 
recurrence  of  particular  exact  locations.  The  child  in  the 
first  grade,  as  soon  as  he  begins  to  learn  facts  about 
the  past,  should  at  least  have  given  him  ancient  times 
as  "  long,  long  ago,"  and  the  periods  of  discovery,  settlement, 
the  Revolution,  and  the  Civil  War,  as  he  begins  to  have  ideas 
which  can  be  centered  about  them.  A  little  farther  along,  the 
names  of  the  kings  and  queens  of  England,  from  Henry  VII 
down,  and  of  the  presidents  of  the  United  States  will  be 
highly  useful.  Only  the  specialist  in  American  history  need 
associate  events  with  particular  years  or  even  decades,  be- 
cause, for  all  who  are  not  specialists,  the  more  general  periods 
are  ample  to  remember  by  and  think  with.  Only  the  Egypt- 
ologist needs  the  names  of  the  Egyptian  dynasties  or  the 
classical  specialist  of  minor  Roman  emperors.  For  the 
ordinary  learner,  they  are  names  that  must  themselves  be 
remembered,  rather  than  means  to  remembering  others. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  209 

So  with  the  names  of  towns  and  cities.  Of  the  twenty  given 
in  the  dictionary  under  "a,"  probably  from  the  fact  that 
frequency  of  recurrence  figured  in  their  inclusion,  almost  all 
are  needed  by  the  great  mass  of  learners — Africa,  Alabama, 
Alaska,  Alexandria,  Algiers,  Allegheny,  Alps,  America, 
Atlantic,  Armenia,  Arizona,  Arkansas,  Appalachian,  Arabia, 
Asia,  Austria,  Australia,  and  Athens.  The  remainder, 
Albany,  Atlanta,  and  Atlas,  together  with  the  thousands  of 
other  names  that  the  gazeteer  or  atlas  would  associate  with 
grand  division,  country,  or  state,  are  not  memory  centers  so 
highly  useful  to  ordinary  learners  that  they  must  be  very  early 
fixed  in  mind,  but  rather  to  be  remembered  by  association 
with  centers  that  are.  For  Europeans,  Albany  is  useful  only 
as  a  city  in  America;  for  Americans,  and  even  for  most  New 
Yorkers,  as  the  capital  of  New  York  and  on  the  Hudson; 
outside  of  its  inhabitants  and  immediate  neighbors,  a  few 
politicians,  business  men,  or  postal  clerks,  may  find  its  associ- 
ation with  a  county  worth  while;  for  primary  school  scholars 
it  has  little  use  at  all.  Atlanta  or  the  Atlas  Mountains  do 
not  bring  into  even  a  cultured  mind  such  a  rush  of  ideas  that 
they  must  be  fixed  in  memory  as  centers  to  remember  by. 
In  the  first  school  grade,  Africa,  America,  Alaska,  Arabia, 
Asia,  Atlantic,  and  Australia  are  all  more  immediate  in  their 
many-sidedness  and  recurrence  than  island,  volcano,  penin- 
sula, and  other  physiographical  concepts,  taught  because  they 
are  simpler,  and  each  one  of  them  can  be  presented  in  rela- 
tionships more  immediately  interesting.  As  great  memory 
centers  they  will  surely  hold  in  mind,  and  be  held  in  mind  by 
gorillas  and  ivory;  the  country  in  which  we  live,  and  in  which 
can  be  located  dozens  of  familiar  names  of  towns,  rivers, 
mountains,  and  states;  miners  and  reindeer  teams;  deserts 
and  coffee-berries;  Chinese  children,  chopsticks  and  little 
shoes;  ships,  fish  and  shells;  and  Bushmen,  sheep,  and  kanga- 
roos. Why  should  they  be  displaced  for  the  few  anemic  germs 
of  scientific  truth  that  can  be  associated  with  smoking  craters 
and  water-encircled  land,  even  though  modeled  in  sand  or 
identified  in  rain  puddle  and  lantern  slide?    It  is  neither  the 

14 


2IO  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

world  as  a  whole  nor  local  geographical  units  which  best 
stand  the  test,  but  the  parts  which,  whether  large  or  small, 
near  or  remote,  serve  as  memory  centers  for  most  ideas  and 
names. 

When  such  general  historical  periods  or  geographical  loca- 
tions are  associated  in  their  necessary  juxtapositions  and  se- 
Artificial  quences,  the  facts  remembered  by  them  are  not 
memory  only  retained  in  relationships  that  are  permanent, 
to^eteln^  but  useful  apperception  is  assured  through  the 
ideas  in  detection  of  resemblances  otherwise  unlooked  for 
their  most  between  them  and  other  ideas  thereby  brought 
permanent  ^^^^  mental  contiguity  with  them.  In  such  arti- 
relation-  ficial  mnemonic  systems  as  that  of  Loisette  this 
ships.  furtherance  of  logical  and  essential  association  is 

lacking.  When,  however,  Hiawatha  and  Robinson  Crusoe 
are  selected  by  the  Herbartians  as  the  basis  of  association  for 
the  entire  work  of  a  school  term,  the  natural  interests  of 
children  are  admirably  utilized  from  the  standpoint  of  mere 
remembrance,  but  from  that  of  apperception,  so  far  as  the 
story  itself  is  the  basis  for  recall,  ideas  are  placed  in  relation- 
ships that  are  temporary,  incidental,  and  of  small  potential 
usefulness  compared  with  those  discoverable  by  instruction 
unhampered  by  the  boundaries  of  a  petty  isle  or  the  atavistic 
limitations  of  a  primitive  life.  Rather,  partial  concepts  of 
factories  and  mills,  of  steamboat  lines  and  railroad  systems, 
of  Mediterraneans  and  Great  Britains,  than  "simpler"  and 
never  fully  comprehended  ideas  of  goat-skin  capes,  canoes, 
and  stockades  are  the  germs  from  which  complex  modern  life 
and  civilization  will  most  surely  and  rapidly  grow.  Here  is 
the  same  alternative  that  confronts  the  teacher  before  chil- 
dren enter  the  primary  school — the  usefully  prophetic  plays 
of  the  kindergarten,  or  the  more  "natural"  plays  made  inter- 
esting through  the  biological  survival  of  prehistoric  hunts  and 
ceremonials. 

All  words  used  as  memory  centers  or  remembered  by 
them  need  not  be  read,  spelled,  or  written.  Until  words 
can  be  readily   sounded   out,  those   used   in   the   reading 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  211 

lesson  should,  for  the  most  part,  be  familiar  to  Much  read- 
children  and  lend  themselves  to  phonetic  drill,  Jo^remem- 
for  phonetic  reading  removes  all  limits  to  the  brance, 
expansion  of  vocabulary.  From  the  stand-  *^r<>^g^ 
point  of  both  mere  remembrance  and  many-sided- 
ness, much  reading  is  more  important  than  the  reading  of 
what  develops  aesthetic  taste.  Crude  stories  that  interest 
children  should  not  be  excluded  from  public  and  school 
libraries  for  lack  of  literary  tone,  if,  through  dealing  with 
various  occupations,  industries,  periods  and  environments, 
they  tend  to  broaden  juvenile  interests  and  vocabularies. 
The  books  that  should  be  inexorably  excluded  are  those  which 
by  juvenilizing  literature  and  ^^simpHfying"  language  in  an 
absurd  syllabic  sense,  prevent  the  addition  of  new  words  to 
the  eager  and  word-hungry  memory  with  which  childhood  is 
blessed.  School  readers,  used  in  class  instruction  and  for 
oral  reading,  however,  should  not  be  informational.  Aside 
from  the  aid  given  by  the  aesthetic,  and  especially  the  emo- 
tional and  dramatic  content  of  good  literature,  to  expressive 
reading,  conversation,  and  eloquent  speech,  the  vocabulary 
of  culture  cannot  be  too  early  acquired. 

Apart  from  a  more  or  less  general  prejudice  against  pho- 
netic reading,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  antagonistic  to  correct 
spelling,  the  greatest  obstacle  in  the  way  of  rapid  specific 
vocabulary  expansion  is  insistence  upon  the  spell-  spelling  drill 
ing  and  more  or  less  exact  definition  of  every  word  f.^°^^^^® 
that  happens  to  be  included  in  a  reading  lesson,  words  corn- 
Specific  spelling  drill,  including  the  repeated  moninordi- 
writing  of  particular  words,  should  be  limited  to  ^^ry  wntmg. 
those  that  immediately  and  more  or  less  frequently  recur  in 
the  type  of  writing  peculiar  to  each  stage  of  development. 
The  words  whose  spelling  should  be  thus  made  sure  are  the 
ordinary  verbs,  adjectives,  adverbs,  pronouns,  and  connect- 
ives, but  include  among  nouns,  only  those  that  are  com- 
monly written  by  all  who  write  at  all.  Dr.  Chancellor  has 
probably  come  closest  to  a  correct  list  by  basing  his  selection 
upon  frequency  of  recurrence  in  the  daily  papers,^  though 


212  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

many  words  frequently  recur  there  that  ordinary  individuals 
will  not  have  to  write.  Without  regard  to  the  prevention 
of  interference  with  vocabulary  expansion  through  school 
reading,  if  pupils  are  to  leave  the  elementary  grades  "good 
spellers"  of  the  words  they  will  continually  have  to  write  in 
business  and  social  correspondence,  the  number  of  words 
selected  for  specific  drill  must  be  so  limited  that  continual 
review  will  be  possible.  Perhaps  experimentation  may  prove 
that  Cleveland  has  been  too  parsimonious,  with  its  two  or 
three  new  spelling  words  a  day,  but  the  result  has  been  better 
spellers.^^  Memory  centers  for  words  as  wholes  may  be  of 
use,  at  this  point,  to  spelling  as  well  as  to  oral  vocabulary, 
through  holding  words  long  enough  in  mind,  during  the  period 
of  initial  memorizing  of  their  spelling,  for  the  spelling  to  be 
repeated  until  retained.  If  the  word,  as  a  whole,  is  forgotten 
as  soon  as  the  lesson  is  over,  the  time  used  for  drilling  upon 
its  spelling  is  wasted.  This  holding  of  the  words  themselves 
in  mind  is  the  only  justification  for  grouping  words  in  spellers, 
as  names  of  flowers,  household  utensils,  and  so  on.  If  it  is 
limited  to  the  period  of  initial  memorizing,  it  need  not  inter- 
fere with  the  gradual  formulation  of  cumulative  lists  of  words 
similar  only  in  their  spelling.  Where,  as  in  the  case  of  ety- 
mological grouping,  words  are  similar  in  meaning  as  well  as 
in  spelling,  both  intitial  spelling  and  its  retention  are  fur- 
thered. 

The  worst  type  of  speUing  list,  though  one  of  the  most 
popular,  on  the  plea  of  adaptation  to  local  and  immediate 
needs,  includes  the  words  most  often  rnisspelled  from  the 
readers  and  other  text-books  in  local  use,  without  regard  to 
the  frequency  with  which  they  will  be  ordinarily  used  outside 
of  written  recitations  or  examinations.  Specific  spelling- 
drill  on  words  brought  into  a  particular  school-book  through 
the  taste  of  an  individual  author  or  the  necessity  of  a  single 
description  or  narrative,  not  only  prevents  adequate  drill  on 
more  useful  words,  but  miscellaneous  words  multiply  too  rap- 
idly to  be  persistently  reviewed.  They  should  not  be  repeat- 
edly spelled,  but  should  be  incidentally  used  for  developing 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  213 

the  habit  of  observing  the  spelling  of  all  new  words,  through 
unconsciously  sounding  them  over  to  one's  self  and  noting 
phonetic  exceptions. 

The  mastery  of  a  foreign  language,  duplicating  as  it  does 
the  vocabulary  of  the  vernacular,  develops  few  centers  useful 
to  remembrance.     A  foreign  vocabulary  is  not     Mastery  of 
something  to  remember  by,  but  something  to  be    foreign 
remembered.     Its  value  is  from  the  standpoint    ^^^^^^^^f 
of  varying  apperception,  specific  discipline,  and    tie  aid  to 
direct  usefulness.     On  the  other  hand,  for  most    remem- 
coUege  graduates  who  are  not  specialists,  as  the    °^^^^®' 
years  go  by  and  specific  systems  of  thought  are  forgotten,  the 
part  of  the  college  course  which  does  not  cluster  as  impression 
about  ideals  and  principles,  has  been  mainly  serviceable 
through  mere  remembrance  and  the  individual  and  varying 
apperception  which  it  makes  possible. 

5.  Application  of  the  Test  for  Selection  to  Varying  Apperception 
If  apperception  were  to  be  confined  to  the  incidental 
association  and  reassociation  of  ideas  common  to  ordinary 
experience,  the  selection  of  material  favorable  to  mere  remem- 
brance would  be  fully  adequate  for  apperception  as  well. 
To  fix  certainly  in  mind  the  most  many-sided  and  frequently 
recurring  ideas,  both  directly  and  indirectly  useful,  and,  with 
the  aid  of  effective  method,  to  bring  consistently  to  bear  upon 
them  and  the  multitude  of  other  memory  centers  made  certain 
by  individual  experience,  the  ideas  which  have  been  selected 
on  account  of  their  useful  many-sidedness,  recurrence,  and 
interest,  is  to  ensure  a  many-sided  and  useful  apperception, 
but  not  the  most  many-sided  and  the  most  useful.     If  ap- 
perception is  to  be  made  either  directly  or  indirectly  useful 
in  the  highest  degree,  individual  memory  centers 
must  be  certainly  associated  together  in  interre-     Systems  of 
lated  groups  and  subdivisions.     The  individual     centers 
memory  centers  may  be  numerous  enough  or     necessary 
general  enough  to  reach  out  after,  and  for  a  time     a^n^ercep- 
retain,  any  idea  presented  to  the  mind,  but,  if  they     tion. 


214  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

are  not  memorized  in  groups  which  the  usual  test  of  relative 
worth  has  shown  to  be  highly  many-sided  and  recurring, 
varying  apperception  will  ensure  neither  the  cumulative 
many-sidedness,  which  makes  the  useful  idea  potent,  through 
general  discipline,  nor  the  complete  system  of  mental  inter- 
connection essential  to  the  greatest  possible  variation,  and, 
therefore,  to  the  most  general  application. 

That  is,  both  the  direct  and  indirect  usefulness  of  varying 
apperception  are  dependent  upon  specific  discipline — ^in  the 

sense  of  system,  as  well  as  through  the  certain 
sided  Tnd"^'  and  definite  association  of  each  individual  idea, 
recurring  The  groupings  and  the  systems  directly  useful 
groups  aid  in  the  highest  degree  will  be  determined  for  each 
perception."    P^ase  of  the  aim  from  the  standpoint  of  specific 

discipline,  and  will  include  all  academic  or  formal 
groups  and  systems  that  are  directly  useful  enough  to  be  cer- 
tainly memorized.  But,  while  all  directly  useful  groups  that 
are  useful  to  varying  apperception  will  be  included,  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  special  phases,  all  directly  useful  to  the 
various  phases  will  not  necessarily  be  useful  to  varying  apper- 
ception and  serve  to  make  varying  apperception  directly  use- 
ful. Such  a  group  of  ideas,  as  the  association  of  the  name  of 
Lincoln  with  humor,  human  sympathy,  faith  in  God,  the 
presidency  of  the  United  States,  the  Civil  War,  and  the 
emancipation  of  slaves,  is  both  ethically  and  politically  useful 
and  furthers  useful  apperception.  But  the  association  of 
Meade,  Pennsylvania  Reserves,  Pickett's  charge,  and  the 
Peach  Orchard  with  Gettysburg  is  useful  to  citizenship  with- 
out being  helpful  to  apperception.  The  component  ideas 
in  this  latter  group  should  be  recalled  as  long  as  Gettysburg 
continues  to  be  an  illustrious  example  of  American  courage 
and  endurance,  and  hence  a  highly  useful  factor  in  cumulative 
impression;  but,  neither  singly  nor  as  a  group,  are  they  many- 
sided  enough  to  the  ordinary  individual  to  have  been  memor- 
ized from  the  standpoint  of  varying  apperception  alone. 
They  constitute  a  group  that  is  to  be  remembered,  not  one  to 
think  with  or  even  to  remember  by. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  215 

Most  of  the  outlines  that  learners  are  compelled  to  plan, 
record,  and  even  to  memorize,  as  a  condition  to  further  ad- 
vancement at  every  stage  of  their  educational   xhe  waste- 
progress,  are  useless  either  for  direct  furtherance  fulness  of 
or  varying  apperception.     A  detailed  outline  of  memorizing 
the  life  and  work  of  a  particular  author,  the  in-   neither 
dustrial  resources  and  political  and  social  condi-   many-sided 
tions  of  a  particular  country,  the  events  in  even  a  ^°^  recur- 
great  military  campaign,  expend  the  memory  in 
place  of  assisting  it,  and  tend  to  develop  unimaginative  indi- 
viduals, who  can  think  only  by  recalling  the  concrete  thing 
which  they  have  thought  out  before.      Put  to  the  test  for 
relative  value,  its  restricted  usefulness  is  immediately  ap- 
parent.    Even  though  it  may  be  inherently  interesting,  it  is 
neither  many-sided  nor  recurring. 

The  ideas  that  are  directly  useful  within  each  academic 
subject  must  be  grouped,  both  for  direct  and  for  indirect 
usefulness,  into  sequences  and  systems  that  are  both  many- 
sided  and  frequently  recurring.  Within  most  branches  rich 
in  content,  not  only  citizenship,  health,  or  morality,  but  vary- 
ing apperception  both  in  the  sense  of  concentration  and  of 
interconnection  may  be  furthered  by  directly  useful  groups 
formed  from  ideas  directly  useful.  In  all  but  the  abstract 
subjects,  interconnection  is  furthered  by  the  system  peculiar 
to  the  branch  of  knowledge  itself,  in  proportion  as  its  com- 
ponent groups  are  many-sided  and  recurring  whether  they  are 
directly  useful  or  not.  Even  in  specialization  with  its  group- 
ing and  organization  of  details  without  regard  to  their  direct 
usefulness  or  to  var3dng  apperception,  the  test  of  many-sided- 
ness and  recurrence  is  still  determining  and  varying  apper- 
ception may  be  furthered  without  the  branch  as  well  as 
within  it. 

These  general  systems  with  their  subordinate  groupings, 
while  in  themselves  constituting  separate  and  individual 
apperception  centers  of  high  value,  multiply  both  their 
centripetal  and  centrifugal  power,  if  they  are  combined 
and  interrelated.      When   their   interrelationship  is  based 


organiza- 
tion. 


2i6  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

solely  on  the  systems  peculiar  to  various  branches  of  learn- 
ing, phases  of  direct  preparation  for  life  and  specializa- 
Oniy  direct  ^j^^  ^^  occupation  or  knowledge,  appercep- 
preparation  tion  takes  the  form  of  specific  and  general 
dom^ance  ^^^^^P^^^^'  ^^^  gradually  results  in  the  domin- 
thr^igh^^^  ^^ce  of  fixed  ideas  and  habits.  Through  them 
cumulative  the  old  idea  or  experience  needs  to  be  always 
apperceived  in  the  same  relationships,  and  the 
new  one  to  be  promptly  subordinated  in  some 
limited  "circle  of  thought.''  In  general  education  such 
dominance  is  essential  only  to  the  directly  useful  appercep- 
tive groups  and  systems.  Religion  and  moraHty,  health, 
industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  good  citizenship,  and 
right  avocation,  themselves  usefully  interrelated,  must,  so 
far  as  possible,  regulate  and  control  human  existence.  To 
them,  from  the  standpoint  of  centripetal  apperception, 
academic  and  specialized  systems  must  be  subordinated. 
Their  selection  is  the  most  important  service  to  which 
the  test  of  relative  usefulness  is  put.  Their  many-sided- 
ness, recurrence,  and  sensational  and  emotional  appeal, 
potentially  the  highest,  must  be  made  actual  through  in- 
struction and  experience. 

But,  aside  from  their  direct  usefulness,  they  combine, 
with  academic  organization  and  all  other  possibly  useful  re- 
Correlation  l^Ltionships,  to  ensure,  on  the  one  hand,  their  own 
between  varying  apperception,  and,  on  the  other,  the  means 
academic  to  the  interrelationship  of  every  idea  and  experi- 
inadequate  ^^^^  ^^^  ^^Y  Other.  To  this  end,  the  ordinary 
for  useful  and  incidental  application  of  Herbartian  correla- 
appercep-  ^ion  and  the  five  formal  steps  is  too  specific,  and, 
therefore,  limited,  a  means.  However  numerous 
the  specific  relationships  formed  between  various  branches  of 
human  knowledge,  and  ensured  through  preparation,  pre- 
sentation, and  the  other  apperceiving  activities  to  each  useful 
idea  presented  in  a  recitation,  the  vast  multitude  of  inter- 
relationships possible  to  experience  are  but  slightly  furthered. 
Still  less  is  their  probability  increased  if  the  associations  and 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  217 

correlations  are  artificial  and  temporary — music  associated 
with  nature  study  by  calling  the  bar  a  fence,  and  the  notes 
of  the  scale  do-birds  and  re-birds,  or  all  the  elementary 
branches  with  each  other,  by  making  Mary's  Little  Lamb 
the  correlating  basis  of  a  day's  round,  or  the  story  of  Crusoe 
the  general  apperceiving  system  for  a  term. 

With  the  exception  of  the  great  systems  of  ideas  cumu- 
latively developed  from  the  standpoint  of  direct  usefulness, 
the  most  many-sided  and  frequently  recurring  General 
systems  of  interrelationships,  and  hence  the  most  location, 
effective  basis  for  complete  and  varying  apper-  and^phases 
ception,  are  not  far-fetched  associations  between  of  personal 
formal  subjects,  but  the  more  general  phases  experience 
of  personal  experience,  together  with  historically  useful  ap- 
related  periods,  reigns  and  epochs,  and  geograph-  perception 
ically  related  localities,  features,  and  sections,  centers. 
Their  value  to  apperception  lies  in  the  fact  that,  when 
an  idea  is  associated  with  them,  it  is  put  into  mental  juxta- 
position, with  a  multitude  of  others  with  which  it  is  almost 
certainly  seen  to  have  something  in  common  which  would 
otherwise  remain  undiscovered.  While  the  interrelated  sys- 
tems of  directly  useful  apperceiving  centers  limit  and  control 
apperception,  those  of  general  experience  and  geographical 
and  historical  location  and  sequence  open  the  way  to  an 
apperception  as  variable  as  human  life  itself.  More  than 
this,  inclusion  in  particular  historical  and  geographical  envi- 
ronments, and  even  in  particular  phases  of  personal  experi- 
ence, is  very  likely  to  be  based  upon  essential  similarities 
which  juxtaposition  makes  it  easier  to  discover.  If  early 
in  life,  however,  every-day  experience  and  historical  and  geo- 
gjraphical  systems  come  through  instruction  to  include  cer- 
tainly what  is  consciously  associated  with  direct  furtherance, 
a  multitude  of  ideas  which  they  generally  locate  and  retain 
are  given  higher  probability  of  becoming  directly  useful  as 
well  as  of  being  miscellaneously  apperceived.  In  these  larger 
interrelationships  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  are  deter- 
mining, and  result  in  an  interest  of  their  own.     The  general 


2i8  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

conditions  essential  to  a  manufacturing  center,  the  ideas  com- 
mon to  a  geographical  description  of  any  country  or  of  any 
staple  of  commerce;  the  general  sequence  or  classification  of 
events  in  colonization,  war,  or  epochs,  reigns  and  administra- 
tions; the  various  branches  of  literature  as  parts  of  literature 
in  general,  the  association  of  the  names  of  authors  with  the 
branch  to  which  they  belong  and  the  books  that  they  have 
written,  the  classification  of  facts  common  to  the  life  and 
work  of  all  authors;  sequences  of  essentially  related  facts  and 
principles  in  science;  these  are  groups  many-sided  and 
recurring  enough  both  to  remember  by  and  think  with. 
They  will  be  committed  to  memory  not  as  directly  furthering 
the  aim,  but  as  constituting  means  by  which  ideas  will  be 
interconnected  and  apperceived. 

In  the  determination  of  the  apperceiving  centers  most 
useful  for  each  stage  of  development,  immediacy  of  sensa- 
tional and  emotional  appeal,  as  well  as  of  many-sidedness  and 
recurrence,  must  be  taken  into  account.  But  at  every  stage, 
immediacy  of  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  are  determin- 
ing. 

Individual  personal  experience  is  not  organized  through 
instruction,  but  organizes  itself,  except  in  so  far  as  it  increas- 
Instruction  ^^g^Y  comes  to  be  dominated  by  direct  further- 
must  select  ance.  But  instruction  must  at  each  stage  of 
the  personal  development  select  the  phases  of  experience  to 
to  which  it  which  a  many-sided  optional  content  is  to  be 
relates  presented.     That  is,  instruction  determines  the 

content.  parts  of  systematic  experience  that  are  to  be 
formally  utilized  as  centers  for  varying  apperception.  If  the 
fern  is  not  presented  in  the  more  many-sided  group  of  trees, 
flowers,  and  plants,  with  their  suggestion  of  growth,  decay, 
the  need  of  proper  care  and  a  constantly  increasing  number 
of  other  ideas,  the  young  child,  if  it  retains  it  and  apperceives 
it  at  all,  may  think  of  the  less  many-sided  and  suggestive 
"pot  of  green  feathers.''  The  nutmegs  in  the  shop  windows 
may  be  "white  peanuts,"  if  they  are  not  given  a  far  greater 
likelihood  of  many-sidedness  by  being  apperceived  as  "spice" 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  219 

that  is  brought  from  far  away.  Incidental  apperception 
should  not  be  wholly  left  to  incidental  experience.  Instruc- 
tion should  assure  initial  apperception  through  the  greatest 
manysidedness  and  most  permanent  recurrence  that  are 
immediate. 

The  most  peculiar  service  of  experience  to  varying  apper- 
ception, however,  consists  of  an  external  and  accidental  juxta- 
position of  ideas  wholly  due  to  its  incidental  Experience 
nature.     An  idea  once   associated   with   a  fre-  useful 

quently  recurring  and  many-sided  apperceiving  through 

.      .1  ^    -^      u  •  •      -J  accidental 

group  IS,  through  its  happemngs,  comcidences,   ^^^  even 

and  illogical  combinations,  brought  into  relation-  absurd 
ships  only  less  variable  than  the  vagaries  of  a  ij^^taposi- 
dream.  Instruction  should  associate  the  optional 
material  which  it  presents  with  the  apperceiving  groups  com- 
mon to  actual  personal  experience  in  which  it  is  certain  to 
be  directly  or  indirectly  useful.  This  accomplished,  the 
accidents  of  experience  may,  through  some  one  relationship 
in  all  the  many-sidedness  of  the  apperceiving  group,  bring  the 
new  material  into  contact  with  an  idea  to  which  only  acci- 
dent or  the  providence  of  God  himself  could  relate  it.  Many 
of  the  relationships  most  useful  to  modern  civilization  have 
been  accidentally  revealed — Watts,  through  the  teakettle, 
and  Newton,  through  the  falling  apple,  each  gained  a  great 
thought  that  would  not  have  been  possible  if  steam  had 
been  associated  only  with  physical  laws  and  not  with 
teakettles,  or  gravitation  through  too  pure  a  science  with 
experimental  apparatus  in  place  of  with  every-day  pheno- 
mena. 

So  a  foreign  product,  instead  of  merely  being  grouped  with 
other  exports  in  a  list  having  only  a  narrow  and  specific 
usefulness,  if  associated  as  a  domestic  import  with  the  use  to 
which  it  is  put,  will  have  a  better  chance  of  being  known  in 
some  new  relationship.  Each  scientific  principle  apperceived 
through  its  most  frequently  recurring  applications,  each 
moral  law  or  ideal  of  citizenship  associated  with  what  is  most 
common  in  actual  experience  will   through  chance  be  put 


220  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

into  connections  which  instruction  cannot  anticipate  and 
which  failure  to  relate  academic  subject  matter  to  hfe  would 
make  impossible. 

Similarly,  the  idea  that  is  initially  associated  with  some 
general  part  of  the  complete  historical  or  geographical  apper- 
ceiving  systems  is  given  a  vastly  increased  chance  of  being 
connected  with  anything  that  the  learner  knows  and  comes  to 
know  of  the  accidents  and  essential  relationships  of  world 
experience  since  the  dawn  of  history.  Once  associate  a 
name,  a  fact,  or  an  activity  with  the  Age  of  Queen  EHzabeth, 
the  coal  regions  of  Pennsylvania,  China,  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, the  Mediterranean  region,  or  the  Civil  War,  and  impres- 
sions, partial  remembrances,  and  certain  relationships  which 
it  may  share  come  crowding  into  the  mind  to  ensure  a  many- 
sided  apperception  and  to  encourage  the  identification  of  the 
general  stimuli  involved  in  general  discipline. 

These  certain  and  specific  associations  through  geograph- 
ical and  historical  contiguity  are  equally  essential  to  direct 
Increasinclv  Preparation  for  life,  culture,  and  discipline,  but 
exact  geo-  are  commonly  memorized  no  more  thoroughly  or 
graphical  retained  no  more  persistently  than  the  thousand 
ical  location  ^^^  ^^^  more  or  less  significant  facts  which  with- 
essential  as  out  them  are  far  less  likely  to  be  useful.  Per- 
knowiedge  gistent  drill  in  general,  as  distinct  from  exact 
location,  should  figure  in  each  stage  of  education. 
Exact  location,  either  by  date  or  point  of  the  compass,  usually 
makes  no  material  addition  to  the  number  of  details  that  may 
be  usefully  associated  with  it,  and  should  be  memorized  only 
when  it  does.  As  each  advancing  stage  of  education  in- 
creases the  number  of  details  that  may  be  associated,  increas- 
ingly exact  location  may,  though  not  necessarily  will,  become 
necessary.  Only  the  specialist  need  commit  to  memory  in 
chronological  order  the  names  of  Merovingians  and  Carlo- 
vingians  or  the  relative  location  of  the  provinces  of  France. 
They  are  many-sided  and  recurring  to  the  historian  and  the 
Frenchman,  but  not  immediately  many-sided  and  recurring 
to  the  majority  of  learners. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  221 

This  drill  in  location  should  not  be  confined  to  the  formal 

study  of  history  and  geography.     Although  in  literature  and 

art  an  aesthetic  appreciation  is  possible  which    ^^g^g  ^^^ 

merely  discriminates  between  the  relatively  good    master- 

and  the  relatively  bad,  it  remains  difficult  to    pieces 

develop  and  retain  in  the  absence  of  the  identi-    ^.^  ^yp^  ^j 

fication  of  the  masterpiece  with  its  creator,  and    production, 

relatively  unintelligent  and  non-suggestive,  if  un-    iiationaUty, 
.      "^  ■,     .  ■,     •,  .,-..,.,.  \  and  epoch, 

associated  with  the  period  of  civilization,  and  even 

the  nationality  and  the  century,  which  inspired  it.  As  al- 
ready pointed  out,  the  names  of  artists  should  be  mechanic- 
ally associated  with  their  masterpieces,  and  of  authors  with 
their  characteristic  works;  essayists  should  be  associated 
with  essayists,  novelists  with  novelists.  It  is  as  important, 
from  the  standpoint  of  culture  and  direct  preparation  for 
leisure,  to  mechanically  retain  in  chronological  order  the 
names  of  German  composers,  Italian  painters,  and  French 
dramatists,  and  in  the  college  course  itself  the  names  of 
Elizabethan  poets,  as  for  the  specialists  to  know  lists  of  hydro- 
carbons or  theorems  and  corollaries  in  logical  order.  No 
name  of  a  pre-eminently  great  writer  or  artist  or  of  a  pre- 
eminent masterpiece  of  literature  or  art  which  continually 
recurs  in  public  library,  art  gallery,  and  museum,  or  even  pop- 
ular periodicals  and  the  public  press,  should  remain  unas- 
sociated  with  historical  period  or  epoch,  race,  nationality, 
and  general  geographical  locality. 

The  initial  memorizing  or  the  drill  necessary  to  the  reten- 
tion of  such  material  is  as  certainly  the  work  of  the  college 
and  professional  school  as  of  schools  that  are  more     ^^^^  ^53^. 
elementary.     The   college   must   not   refuse   to    ciation  as 
retail  "second-hand"  material   through  a  ''gen-    t^^ly  t^e 
eral  information  course"  on  the  ground  that  a    college  as 
''lively  man   might  find  it  for  himself"  by  a    of  second- 
judicious  use  of  the  dictionary  or  the  encyclo-    ^^^  school, 
pedia.     Its  function  is  to  make  the  "lively  man,"  not  to 
take  him  for  granted.     It  must  not  leave  to  chance  the  occa- 
sional but  persistent  review  necessary  to  the  retention  of 


222  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

the  specific  relationships  which  the  self-active  man  must 
remember  by  and  think  with. 

Any  idea,  if  in  itself  many-sided  in  the  highest  degree  in 
potentially  useful  relationships,  made  permanent  by  contin- 
ual recurrence  in  every-day  experience  or  through 
useful  sys-  ^^^  persistent  repetition  of  memory  drills,  may 
terns  make  serve  as  the  basis  for  retaining  new  ideas  and  for 
^}^^^y'  giving  them  the  greatest  likelihood  of  being  fully 
useful.  apperceived  in  relationships  which  will  further 

general  culture,  general  discipline,  direct  prepa- 
ration for  life,  and  even  specialization  itself.  They  differ 
from  the  ordinary  mental  content,  which  may  happen  to  be 
as  many-sided,  in  the  fact  that,  selected  because  they  possess 
the  greatest  number  of  potentially  useful  relationships,  they 
are  to  be  made,  so  far  as  possible,  common  to  all  individuals 
for  the  sake  both  of  furthering  the  common  knowledge, 
activities,  and  culture  essential  to  democracy,  and  of  consti- 
tuting selected  and  specific  relationships  through  which  all 
new  ideas  will  not  only  be  associated,  but  definitely  associ- 
ated. 

For  example,  it  matters  much,  both  to  certainty  of  reten- 
tion and  probability  of  further  useful  apperception,  whether 
the  story  of  the  Prince  and  the  Chief  Justice  is  incidentally 
connected  with  a  particular  book,  a  pleasant  afternoon,  or 
a  children's  magazine,  or  specifically  associated  through 
instruction  with  England,  the  fifteenth  century,  and  good 
citizenship.  The  two  phases  of  the  service  which  this  specific 
apperception  performs  are  well  illustrated  by  the  game  of 
twenty  questions.  Starting  in  ignorance  of  the  thing  selected 
by  one's  opponents  from  the  whole  mass  of  possible  ideas, 
the  player  successively  determines  that  it  is  English,  medieval, 
a  person,  a  prince,  and  almost  certainly  guesses  the  Black 
Prince,  one  of  the  Princes  in  the  Tower,  or  Prince  Henry. 
Reversing  this  process,  and  starting  with  Henry,  the  possibil- 
ity of  associating  him  with  many  other  ideas  steadily  in- 
creases as  you  relate  him  to  prince,  English,  medieval,  and 
other  terms  about  which  a  thousand  other  ideas  cluster. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  223 

The  incident  of  the  Prince  and  the  Justice  may  be  remem- 
bered just  as  certainly  by  association  in  one  mind  with 
Dicken's  "Child's  History  of  England/' and  in  another  with 
the  story  of  the  "Prince  and  the  Pauper,"  but  it  is  not  poten- 
tially as  useful  as  if  it  were  associated  in  both  minds  through 
"medieval"  with  chivalry,  feudalism,  gorgeous  costume,  her- 
aldry, tournament,  knightly  faith,  free  cities;  through  "Eng- 
lish," not  only  with  honesty  and  justice,  Henrys  and  Ed- 
wards, Magna  Charta,  parliaments  and  barons,  but  with 
every  English  idea  and  event  that  each  individual  happens 
to  remember  from  the  coming  of  the  Saxons  to  the  coronation 
of  Edward  VII.  If  it  is  held  in  mind,  with  such  miscellane- 
ous connections  made  as  probable  as  possible,  the  mind  is 
far  more  likely  to  perceive  inherent  relationships  between  it 
and  other  faithful  justices,  other  just  and  honest  princes, 
the  popularity  of  royalty,  confidence  in  the  impartiality  of 
courts,  obedience  to  law  and  the  doctrine  of  equal  rights,  than 
if  it  is  remembered  through  association  with  another  story 
or  book. 

Obviously,  however,  the  sum  total  of  ideas  presented  to 
the  mind  through  formal  instruction  cannot  be  made  certain 
in  such  connections.  Individual,  incidental,  and,  instruction 
therefore,  varying  associations  and  apperceptions  must  ensure 
will  be  far  more  largely  responsible  for  the  cer-  association 
tain  recollections,  the  mere  remembrances,  and  most  useful 
the  impressions  which  form  the  greater  part  of  apperceiv- 
education.  It  is  the  place  of  formal  instruction  to  ^^^  centers. 
see,  first,  that  these  basal  mnemonic  and  dynamic  groups  and 
sequences  are  themselves  certainly  fixed  in  mind,  and, 
second,  that  the  new  ideas  are  presented  as  often  as  possible 
in  relation  to  them.  The  part  of  the  time  effective  for  cer- 
tain memorizing  and  retention  that  need  be  devoted  to  this 
mnemonic  and  dynamic  drill  is  relatively  small.  Probably 
less  than  five  or  ten  minutes  a  day  throughout  the  entire 
educational  course  would  be  quite  adequate.  But  it  is  as 
necessary  in  the  college,  professional  school,  and  university 
as  in  the  high  school  or  the  lower  grades.     It  may  properly 


2  24  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

be  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  college  professor  to  serve  as  the 
drill  master,  but  the  drill  master  or,  at  least,  examiner  must 
be  found,  whether  in  professor  or  preceptor  and  tutor.  So 
essential  a  basis  for  many-sidedness  and  interrelationship 
must  not  be  taken  for  granted  or  left  to  chance. 

The  optional  content  most  useful  to  apperception  is  largely 
identical  with  that  most  useful  to  mere  remembrance.  With 
Efficiency  both  directly  and  indirectly  useful  apperceiving 
of  essential  centers  and  systems  certainly  fixed  in  the  mind 
content  q£  ^^le  learner,  the  extent  of  the  many-sidedness 

upon  the  ^^  varying  apperception  depends  upon  the  rela- 
usefulness  tive  usefulness  and  the  quantity  of  optional 
o  op  lona .  iYia,tenaly  and,  so  far  as  the  recitation  is  con- 
cerned, the  efficiency  of  the  method  through  which  it  is  pre- 
sented. It  is  at  this  point  that  the  Herbartian  contribution 
to  method  has  been  most  helpful.  The  "five  formal  steps" 
are  steps  to  apperception,  and,  in  the  absence  of  memory  drill, 
usually  to  varying  apperception,  though  "preparation"  de- 
termines the  associations  in  experience  through  which  instruc- 
tion seeks  to  retain  the  new  idea.  In  the  absence,  however,  of 
the  constant  drill  necessary  to  the  dominance  of  a  particular 
group,  even  "generalization"  and  "application"  may  serve 
no  further  purpose  than  the  temporary  association  of  a  few 
ideas  insufficient  to  create  an  apperceiving  center.  Every 
new  association,  however  apperceived,  even  though  tem- 
porary, tends  to  completeness  of  mental  interconnection,  and 
so  favors  both  varying  apperception  and  general  discipline. 

From  the  quantitative  standpoint,  each  foreign  language, 
thoroughly  enough  acquired  to  be  pleasurably  read  or  orally 
comprehended,  may  be  made  an  effective  instru- 
ff^o^eign^  ment  to  varying  apperception  through  untran- 
languages  a  slated  literature,  business,  travel,  and  even  occa- 
great  aid  to  sional  letters  and  conversation.  As  has  been  al- 
perception."  ready  demonstrated,  aside  from  direct  usefulness 
in  business,  avocation,  and  academic  or  vocational 
specialization,  it  is  through  varying  apperception,  and  not 
through  general  discipline,  that  the  mastery  of  a  foreign 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  225 

language  is  usefuL  The  study  necessary  to  its  mastery,  how- 
ever, involves  a  specific  discipline  peculiar  to  the  language 
itself,  and  intellectual  habits  which  can  become  general,  but 
are  little  likely  to  become  so  through  it.  As  for  other  aca- 
demic subjects  and  systems,  if  imperfectly  and  temporarily 
mastered,  they  make  contribution,  though  not  necessarily 
very  useful  contribution,  to  optional  material.  If  thoroughly 
and  permanently  mastered,  they  become  apperceiving  centers 
and  systems  which  are  directly  useful  if  included  in  direct 
preparation  or  specialization,  and  are  indirectly  useful  through 
varying  apperception  in  proportion  to  the  many-sidedness 
and  recurrence  of  their  subject  matter. 

6.  Application  of  the  Test  for  Relative  Value  to  General  Dis- 
cipline 
Certain  of  the  relationships  most  useful  to  general  disci- 
pline have  either  been  already  determined  in  the  application 
of  the  test  to  cumulative  impression  and  varying  appercep- 
tion, or  will  form  a  part  of  what  is  specifically  useful  to  direct 
preparation.  But,  while  a  relationship  or  group  of  relation- 
ships may  be  specifically  useful  enough  to  some  phase  of 
direct  preparation  to  be  made  certain,  before  it  is  selected  as 
a  center  for  cumulative  impression  and  varying  apperception, 
with  a  view  to  general  discipline,  its  stimulus  must  be  de- 
termined in  as  general  a  form  as  is  most  useful  through  its 
many-sidedness  and  recurrence  in  fields  of  experience  other 
than  that  in  which  it  is  developed.  For  example,  .^j^g  deter- 
obedience  will  undoubtedly  be  included  among  the  mination  of 
relationships  most  useful  to  morality,  industry,  J^®  ^*^"^rli 
and  citizenship,  but  obedience  to  what?  In  enough  to 
morality  its  stimulus  is  individual  judgment  of  be  most 
right,  backed  by  a  moral  code  and  all  custom  ^^®  ^  * 
accepted  as  essential  to  the  well-being  of  the  community  that 
is  not  wrong  for  the  individual.  In  industry  it  is  every  com- 
mand or  direction  of  the  employer  which  pertains  to  the  em- 
ployment; in  citizenship,  law  or  the  legal  command  of  legally 
constituted  officials.     Each  stimulus  to  obedience,   which 

15 


226  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

forms  these  various  relationships  with  it,  is  plainly  many- 
sided  enough,  and  frequently  recurring  enough  in  each  to  be 
certainly  mastered  in  each  in  all  the  specific  relationships 
essential  to  general  discipline.  Indeed,  the  mastery  of  all 
will  further  the  application  of  each  in  its  separate  field  of 
usefulness.  Each  general  stimulus  to  obedience  must  then  be 
identified  as  generally  as  possible  in  the  field  in  which  it 
operates.  It,  with  the  specific  relationships  necessary  to  ap- 
plication, must  become  a  part  of  the  complex  sys- 
use^fuTliabit  tem  of  ideals,  information,  activities,  and  habits 
must  have  essential  to  morality,  industry,  or  citizenship, 
specific  gen-  -g^^  obedience  to  morals,  to  employer,  and  to  law 
eral  stimuli.  ./-    ,      .  i      i  mi  •  i    i 

must  be  identified  with  the  still  more  many-sided 

and  frequently  recurring  obedience  to  any  command  or 
direction  not  in  itself  evil,  given  by  one  who  has  the  right 
to  command.  Here  is  the  relationship  which  is  most  useful 
because  it  adds  to  its  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  from 
the  standpoint  of  morality,  industry,  or  citizenship,  a  still 
wider  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  in  useful  relationships 
from  the  high  concept  of  obedience  to  the  will  of  God  or  to 
the  example  of  Christ,  to  boyish  obedience  to  the  captain  of 
the  nine  oj  the  eleven  and  the  notion  of  fair  play  in  all  sport. 
In  any  one  of  these  relationships  the  habit  of  obedience  may 
be  firmly  formed,  and  from  any  one  of  these  it  may  fail  to 
carry  over.  The  weakness  in  dependence  upon  "general 
moral  habit,"  as  against  the  specific  development  of  moral 
habits  essential  to  industry  or  citizenship,  is  that  habits, 
including  moral  habits,  are  not  general  at  all.  The  greatest 
likelihood  of  general  application  lies  in  certainly  associating 
with  each  useful  consequence,  in  addition  to  its  most  general 
stimulus  that  is  useful,  each  stimulus  that  is  useful  in  high 
degree  in  some  specific  field.  And  to  both  general  and  specific 
stimuli,  the  test  of  many-sidedness,  frequency,  and  sensa- 
tional or  emotional  appeal  must  be  applied. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  stimulus  most  general  within 
each  specific  field  should  be  consciously,  certainly,  and  per- 
sistently associated  with  the  stimulus  which  is  most  useful 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  227 

for  all,  in  order  that  the  cumulative  impression  But  aU  must 
developed  through  all  can  be  brought  to  bear  upon  fied  with  the 
each.     Obedience    to    law   will    not   necessarily  most  gen- 
result    from    obedience    in    home    and    school,  erally  use- 

,  '  ful  stimulus, 

obedience  to  employer,  and  obedience  to  moral 

judgments,  but  good-will  toward  law,  the  wish  to  obey  it, 
will  be  tremendously  re-enforced  if  its  stimulus  is  identified 
with  obedience  in  general,  and  so  associated  with  a  cumu- 
lative mass  of  ideals,  feehngs,  imaginations,  knowledge, 
actions,  and  habits  which  are  applicable  to  all  forms  of 
obedience. 

With  the  exception  of  varying  apperception,  and  the  habit 
of  analysis  and  synthesis  on  the  recognition  of  any  part 
of  each  general  stimulus  with  a  view  to  its  identi-  ^  ^^^^_ 
fication  as  a  whole,  all  other  conditions  favorable  tionships 
to  general  discipline  are  specific,  and  must  be  essential  to 
included  in  direct  preparation  within  the  field  of  determined 
application.  Here,  again,  is  abundant  reason  through 
for  including  the  development  of  essential  moral  x?®"^^®^^^ 
habits  in  direct  preparation,  in  place  of  hopefully 
depending  upon  the  application  of  moral  habits  developed 
elsewhere.  The  determination  of  the  particular*  fields,  in 
which  the  useful  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  of  the  stimu- 
lus are  highest,  determines  the  fields  in  which  detailed  knowl- 
edge is  to  be  acquired,  the  habits  of  analysis  and  synthesis 
made  certain,  and  the  habit  of  seeking  possible  appHcations 
formed.  The  relative  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  of 
particular  details  of  knowledge,  as  a  condition  to  application, 
determines  which  are  essential.  It  is  the  many-sidedness, 
the  recurrence,  and  even  the  sensational  or  emotional  appeal 
of  a  particular  application  that  determines  whether  it  is  suffi- 
ciently useful  to  be  associated  as  a  "type"  of  similar  applica- 
tions. Even  the  particular  habit  which  is  to  be  made  certain 
and  sure,  as  the  basis  for  all  the  complex  associations  favorable 
to  its  general  application,  must  be  selected  on  the  ground 
of  the  relative  many-sidedness,  frequency,  and  emotional 
appeal  of  its  general  stimulus. 


228  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

To  continue  the  illustration,  take  obedience  to  law  as  a 

factor  in  citizenship.     The  basal  habit  of  obedience,  whether 

The  test        ^^  ^^^  home  or  elsewhere,  cannot  be  taken  for 

illustrated      granted.     Obedience  to  some  stimulus  or  other 

through  Its    niust  be  made  sure  for  every  pupil  of  the  school. 

apphcation      _,^,        .  .„  i.iir* 

to  the  habit  What  IS  SO  fully  under  the  control  of  instruction, 

of  obedi-  and,  at  the  same  time,  more  immediate  in  its 
ence  to  law.  many-sidedness,  its  recurrence,  and  its  emotional 
appeal  as  the  law  of  the  school?  From  the  standpoint  of 
citizenship,  however,  the  general  stimulus  of  which  the  pupils 
are  made  habitually  conscious  must  not  be  love  of  teacher,  the 
hope  of  reward,  the  fear  of  punishment,  rational  conviction 
of  the  necessity  of  particular  rules,  the  fact  that  they  have  been 
made  by  the  school  itself  as  a  self-governing  body,  or  even  the 
presence  of  authority  which  has  the  moral  right  to  command, 
but  the  naked  fact  that  the  law  of  the  school  is  the  law  of  the 
community  and  the  state  created  by  legislature  and  school 
board,  and  that  the  teacher  is  a  legally  constituted  officer 
of  that  law.  All  other  motives  to  obedience  must  unite  to 
re-enforce  the  incentive  of  legality,  but  no  one  of  them  can  be 
substituted  for  it.  The  teacher  may  be  hated,  reward 
scorned,  punishment  defied,  the  necessity  for  rule  unappreci- 
ated, self-government  betrayed,  and  moral  motive  undevel- 
oped, but  the  law  of  the  school  as  the  law  of  the  state  must 
be  obeyed.  No  boy  should  be  expelled  or  suspended  from 
school,  to  be  educated  into  outlawry  through  successful  defi- 
ance of  law,  and  to  become  to  other  pupils  an  impressive  ex- 
ample that  law  can  be  successfully  defied.  On  the  contrary, 
his  removal  to  some  special  institution  or  school  where 
obedience  can  be  effectively  compelled  should  keep  him  in 
the  habit  of  obedience  to  law,  and  accustom  both  him 
and  his  companions  to  the  inexorability  with  which  it  is 
compelled. 

Continual  identification  of  obedience  to  law,  with  the  more 
general  stimulus  of  any  command  given  by  one  who  has  the 
right,  performs  the  double  service  of  re-enforcing  the  stimu- 
lus of  law  by  the  cumulative  force  of  all  other  motives,  and  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  229 

adding  its  force  to  theirs,  but  obedience  to  law  must  make  a 
cumulative  impression  of  its  own.  From  the  standpoint  of 
citizenship,  it  is  not  only  necessary  to  obey  the  law,  but  to 
obey  the  law  because  it  is  the  law.  So,  with  due  regard  for 
the  test  of  relative  worth  for  the  sake  of  cumulative  impres- 
sion, a  few  highly  emotional  illustrations  are  selected  to  be 
specifically  and  certainly  associated  with  it  as  an  emotional 
center  for  a  gradually  developing  will  to  obey  the  law:  the 
judge  who  condemns  his  own  son,  Gascoigne  and  Prince 
Henry,  Christ  and  the  tribute  money. 

To  these  must  be  continually  added  incidents  and  exam- 
ples relatively  impressive,  many-sided  and  recurring,  which, 
though  themselves  forgotten,  will  strengthen  the  common 
feeling  of  regard  for  and  pride  in  obedience  to  law.  Further- 
more, such  many-sided  and  frequently  recurring  ideals  and 
habits  of  obedience  as  have  been  formed  in  the  home  should 
be  made  legally  potent  through  persistent  emphasis  of  the 
fact  that  the  teacher  stands  in  loco  parentis. 

Similarly,  the  test  of  relative  worth  must  be  applied  with 
a  view  to  mere  remembrance  and  to  varying  apperception. 
With  the  ideal  of  obedience  to  law  must  be  specifically  associ- 
ated the  periods  and  the  localities  in  which  it  is  likely  to  have 
the  most  frequently  recurring,  many-sided  and  impressive 
relationships:  the  Roman  Empire,  the  age  of  Justinian,  the 
development  of  the  British  constitution.  In  addition,  there 
must  be  brought  to  bear  upon  it  as  many  as  possible  memory 
and  apperceiving  centers,  less  many-sided  and  recurring  than 
democracy,  habeas  corpus,  trial  by  jury,  and  other  concepts 
that  must  be  certainly  memorized,  but  more  many-sided  and 
recurring  than  those  which  might  be  referred  to  or  discussed: 
the  common  law,  constitutional  law,  the  canon  law,  despot- 
ism, anarchy,  limited  monarchy.  These  concepts  whose  lack 
of  immediacy  in  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  makes 
them  the  partial  concepts  and  mere  remembrances  of  the 
lower  stages  of  advancement,  become  the  concepts  that  must 
be  fully  comprehended  and  definitely  and  certainly  associated 
in  the  more  advanced  grades. 


230  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

For  the  remaining  conditions  to  the  general  application  of 
the  habit,  specific  discipline  is  solely  responsible  and  the  test 
of  relative  worth  still  more  obviously  applies.  It  is  specific 
discipline  that  must  certainly  associate  with  law,  as  the 
stimulus  to  obedience,  the  few  acts  of  obedience  which  will 
be  most  frequently  recurring  and  many-sided  for  those  who 
are  being  taught.  With  some  schools  it  may  be  prevention 
of  the  defacement  or  destruction  of  property,  public  order 
during  a  strike,  or  observation  of  the  law  concerning  the  col- 
lection of  refuse;  with  others,  it  may  be  the  prevention  of 
smuggling  on  returning  from  a  trip  to  Europe,  and  the 
observation  of  the  speed  laws  on  the  pubKc  highway.  The 
associated  applications  will  vary  with  locality,  school,  and 
grade,  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  always  being  deter- 
mining for  locality  and  immediacy  for  grade.  With  the  gen- 
eral stimulus  must  also  be  certainly  associated  such  frequently 
recurring  and  many-sided  fields  of  application  as  business, 
public  health,  property  and  person,  together  with  the  most 
many-sided  and  frequently  recurring  terms  associated  with 
each:  receipt,  contract,  protest,  levy;  fumigation,  health 
inspection,  quarantine;  trespass,  lease,  ejectment,  damage, 
distinction  between  real  and  personal  property;  self-defence, 
resistance  to  an  officer,  assault  and  battery,  perjury,  and  right 
of  search.  These  are  but  a  few  examples  of  the  terms  which, 
immediately  many-sided  and  recurring  at  various  stages  of 
educational  progress,  will  aid  in  carr)dng  over  the  habit  of 
obedience  to  law  if  cumulative  impression  has  created  the 
will  to  make  it  general. 

Finally,  it  is  self-evident  that  the  selection  of  the  general 
stimulus  which  is  most  useful,  or  of  the  most  useful  fields  of 
application,  is  also  determining  for  the  habit  of  seeking  out 
applications  while  in  school,  the  habit  of  analysis  and  syn- 
thesis in  particular  fields,  and  the  habit  of  analysis  and  syn- 
thesis with  a  view  to  the  identification  of  the  stimulus  as  a 
whole  on  the  recognition  of  any  of  its  parts.  That  is,  the 
general  test  for  relative  value  can  be  used  not  only  with  a 
view  to  determining  the  habits  and  relationships  which  should 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  231 

be  applied  in  other  fields  than  those  in  which  they   The  test 
are  made  certain,  but  to  determining  the  various   ^®!^^2,^^^^ 
relationships  which  most  effectively  aid  in  carrying   most  useful 
them  over.     In  direct  preparation  involving  moral   habits  and 
or  intellectual  habits  generally  useful,  the  memoriz-   ||j,^g^|*' 
ing  of  these  latter  relationships  must  include  those   favorable 
essential  to  the  general  application  of  habits  in  *<>  t^eir^ 
all  fields  of  experience  in  which  they  are  useful.   ^^^  ^^  ^^' 
This  follows  not  only  from  the  desirability  of  carrying  them 
over  into  other  fields,  but  from  the  necessity  of  re-enforcing 
them  in  each  specific  field  in  which  they  are  certainly  devel- 
oped, with  the  sum  total  of  influences  which  tend  to  make 
them  stronger  than  possible  alternatives.     Obedience,  truth- 
fulness, honesty,  promptness,  punctuality,  industry,  perse- 
verance, endurance,  bravery,  and  their  common  personal 
and  social  factors,  self-control,  self-respect,  consideration  for 
others,  the  respect  of  others,  love  and  self-sacrifice,  whether 
developed  and  exercised  in  school  or  out,  are  always  opposed 
by  conflicting  tendencies  and  habits,  and  need  in  any  one 
field  of  experience  the  cumulative  re-enforcement  from  all 
others  in  which  they  have  become  dominant.    Their  general 
application  within  each  is  dependent  upon  the  certain  memo- 
rizing or  habitual  operation  of  specific  relationships  rela- 
tively most  useful  to  general  discipline,  including  not  only 
cumulative  impression,  but  the  whole  group  of  favorable 
relationships  just  illustrated  in  discussing  the  general  appli- 
cation of  the  habit  of  obedience.     And  the  certainty  of  their 
application  in  each  and  the  probability  of  their  application  in 
all  is  increased  by  each  addition  of  the  circle  of  specific 
relationships  favorable  to  application  in  any  one. 

From  the  standpoint  of  general  discipline,  then,  it  is  as 
necessary  to  apply  the  test  of  relative  worth  to  the  relation- 
ships which  constitute  favorable  conditions  to  the  broadest 
useful  application  of  a  habit  as  to  use  it  in  the  determina- 
tion of  the  basal  habit  itself.  That  the  basal  habit  may 
be  academic  and  certain  of  development  in  the  mastery  of 
a  particular  branch  is  no  reason  for  developing  it  there  as 


232  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

a  step  toward  general  discipline,  unless  its  subject  matter 
also  furnishes  the  relationships  necessary  to  its  carrjdng  over 
The  condi-  ii^^o  Other  fields,  or  special  provision  is  made 
tions  favor-  through  Other  subject  matter  and  the  life  of  the 
able  to  use-  iga^j-^ej.  j^  school  and  out,  to  ensure  its  carrying 
discipline  over.  A  System  of  specific  relationships,  quite 
form  a  sys-  distinct  from  any  academic  system,  but  equally 
from  ^^  ^^^  complex  and  equally  subject  to  the  test  of  relative 
academic  worth,  is  essential  not  only  to  direct  preparation 
system.  f^j.  j^£g^  j^^^  ^q  ^j^g  general  application  of  each  gen- 
erally useful  moral  or  intellectual  habit.  Without  direct  and 
specific  preparation  for  life,  general  discipline  is  at  its  minimum 
for  the  habits  which  academic  training  has  made  most  sure. 

Since  a  branch  of  study  as  a  systematic  whole  cannot  be 
usefully  applied  outside  the  field  for  which  it  is  specifically 
organized,  its  usefulness  as  a  whole  to  general  discipline  is 
limited  to  its  contribution  of  specific  relationships  which  are 
to  be  carried  over  and  the  ensuring  of  cumulative  impression 
and  varying  apperception  necessary  to  general  application. 
The  inadequacy  of  the  abstract  subjects  from  this  point  of 
view,  outside  the  province  of  specialization,  has  been  cumu- 
latively emphasized.  It  is  the  rich  subject  matter  of  natural 
science,  history,  literature,  and  art  which  not  only  affords 
the  material  for  directly  useful  organization,  but  which, 
through  the  organization  peculiar  to  each  branch  as  a  whole, 
furnishes  the  apperceiving  and  memory  centers  and  systems 
which  further  general  discipline  through  varying  appercep- 
tion and  mere  remembrance. 

There  are,  however,  certain  habits  which  the  test  of  rela- 
tive worth  will  show  highly  useful,  from  the  standpoint  of 
General  general  application,  that  are  dependent  upon  the 
moral  and  mastery  of  complex  and  systematic  bodies  of 
intellectual  knowledge.  The  habit  of  progressive  or  cumula- 
habits  can-       ,  ^     .  xi.     •        i.-  i.   • 

not  be  de-     tive  analysis  or  synthesis  which  is  necessary  to 

veloped  in  the  building  up  of  complex  logical  wholes,  of 
envir^n-^^*  exact  thinking,  which  passes  from  initial  premises 
ment.  to  conclusions  which  in  time  become  premises,  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  233 

industry,  exactness,  persistence,  and  patience  in  complex 
and  abstract  endeavor,  form  a  necessary  part  of  the  mental 
and  spiritual  equipment  of  all  great  thinkers.  The  ac- 
quisition of  such  habits,  however,  is  a  phase  of  speciahza- 
tion.  Since  the  individuals  whose  specialty  demands  them, 
whether  it  is  vocational  or  liberal,  will,  from  the  same 
standpoint  of  direct  preparation,  just  as  certainly  require 
mathematics  and  the  languages,  such  carrying  over  as  may 
be  incidental  to  "formal"  and  abstract  study  will  result.  But 
in  the  course  of  preparation  for  life  in  general  a  far  differ- 
ent application  of  these  intellectual  and  moral  qualities  is 
essential.  If  the  patience  and  persistence  which  are  equal 
to  material  that  reacts  against  the  worker  through  twistings 
and  turnings,  splittings  and  breakings  that  seem  to  make  it 
perversely  alive,  or  which  overcome  animate  ^j^^  cumu- 
nature  whose  stupidity  or  folly,  unfriendliness  lative  sys- 
or  wickedness  make  perversity  real,  are  not  of  !?Tx  ®|?®^I 
different  quality  from  the  patience  and  persist-  preparation 
ence  involved  in  the  analysis  and  synthesis  of  ensure 
lines  and  symbols,  they  at  least  represent  applica-  *  ®°^* 
tion  in  so  different  a  spiritual  environment,  and  with  so  much 
stronger  alternative  impulses,  that  they  must  be  separately 
developed.  The  moral  or  intellectual  habit  that  triumphs 
over  conflicting  impulses  and  incentives  must  be  something 
more  than  a  by-product  of  academic  achievement  or  even 
an  essential  condition  to  it.  In  order  to  have  the  inexora- 
bility to  conquer  material  resistance  and  human  opposition 
and  temptation  it  must  be  made  "stern"  and  strong,  not 
merely  from  facing  the  complex  problems  involved  in  the 
mastery  of  great  systems  of  thought,  but  from  having  the 
cumulative  re-enforcement  of  a  great  intellectual,  emotional 
and  motor  system  of  the  application  of  which  it  is  a  part,  and 
upon  which  its  general  application  directly  depends.  In 
every-day  life  the  spirit  and  the  habits  of  science  should  be 
continually  applied,  but  they  are  most  certain  of  application 
when  they  are  acquired  through  those  parts  of  science  that 
are  not  only  organized  as  science,  but  in  systematic  relation- 


234  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

ship  to  life  itself.  For  the  great  mass  of  mankind  it  is  safe  to 
conclude  that  direct  preparation  will  not  only  develop  the 
moral  and  intellectual  qualities  most  general  in  their  useful- 
ness through  the  recurrence  and  many-sidedness  of  each  essen- 
tial relationship  best  fitted  to  their  perpetuation  and  general 
Manual  in-  application,  but,  through  a  sufficiently  systematic 
dustrial  ^^d  complex  subject  matter,  to  ensure  the  "stern" 
su^bjecfto  resistance  to  application  which  Dr.  Kerschen- 
the  test  of     steiner   finds   lacking   in    academic   elementary 

^^^J"  school  work.^    The  industrial  training,  in  the 

sidedness  .  i  .      .    .  i  .  i    i 

and  sense  01  manual  trammg,  which  he  urges  as  the 

recurrence,  elementary  substitute  for  the  complex  organiza- 
tion of  more  advanced  studies,  can  be  more  truly  regarded 
not  only  as  a  part  of  a  highly  organized  direct  preparation 
for  morality  or  citizenship,  but  as  a  part  for  which  the  test  of 
sensational  appeal  will  not  be  determining  in  the  absence  of 
many-sidedness  and  recurrence  useful  to  learners  who  are  not 
specialists. 

Although  he  is  safe  in  assuming  that  elementary  and  indus- 
trial manual  training  may  result  in  the  spirit  of  cheerful 
co-operation,  it  does  not  follow  that,  by  industrializing  the 
school,  he  has  developed  the  cheerful  spirit  and  basal  habit 
of  co-operation  essential  to  good  citizenship.  He  will  find 
it  hard  enough  to  carry  over  his  cheerful  co-operation,  re- 
sulting from  an  immediate  interest  in  an  exceptional  and  per- 
sonal task,  to  the  monotonous  grind  of  putting  on  boot-heels 
or  polishing  watch  cases  in  an  employer's  factory.  It  is  a 
still  farther  cry  from  individualistic  occupation  or  cheerful 
co-operation  in  the  making  of  a  heel  as  part  of  a  shoe  that 
never  will  wear  itself  out  on  a  workman's  foot,  or  the  polish- 
ing of  a  watch  case  that  never  will  be  scratched  in  a  workman's 
pocket,  to  cheerful  payment  of  one's  just  part  of  a  public 
tax  or  cheerful  co-operation  with  the  police  force  when  the 
shop  is  shut  down  by  a  strike.  From  the  standpoint  of 
civic,  as  distinct  from  industrial  training,  better  the  more 
direct  preparation  of  Miss  Wister's  League  of  Good  Citizen- 
ship, with  its  cheerful  co-operation  in  cleaning  school  grounds 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  235 

and  protecting  private  and  public  property,^  than  that  of 
the .  manual  training  school,  in  making  a  desk  or  a  book-rack 
to  be  displayed  in  the  principal's  oiB&ce. 

The  ideals,  the  partial  concepts,  the  many-sidedness,  and 
the  habits,  equally  essential  to  direct  preparation  and  general 
discipline,  when  once  selected  must  be  more  specifically 
and  certainly  organized  in  every  phase  of  direct  preparation 
than  in  the  academic  branches  whose  organization  is  in  part 
at  least  included  in  it.  Including,  as  they  then  will,  both  the 
relationships  which  are  to  be  generally  applied  and  the  rela- 
tionships through  which  application  is  made  most  certain, 
they  must  be  as  complex  in  their  direct  usefulness  as  a  pure 
science  in  its  abstraction. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  can  safely  be  asserted  that  the  most 
thorough  study  of  even  a  formal  branch,  in  the  absence  of 
the   certain   memorizing   of   relationships   quite 
external   to   its   logical   organization,    far   from   General 
carrying   over  the   resulting   habits  into   other  ^tWn  an 
fields  of  experience,  will  fail  to  result  in  gen-   academic 
eral    discipline    within    the    formal    branch    it-   ^^*^*^^ 
self.    The  great  mass  of  pupils  in  arithmetic  upon  mem- 
are  still  confused  in  the  face  of  miscellaneous  orizing  re- 
examples,   and   students   in   geometry   are   yet  ^**Jo^ships 
helpless  when  confronted  by  original  theorems  to  it. 
and  problems. 

To  illustrate,  a  student  may  know  every  proposition  re- 
garding the  relation  between  lines  and  angles  and  the  equality 
of  triangles,  and  still  be  unable  to  demonstrate  the  simplest 
original  theorem  involving  them.  Given  the  fact  that  one 
angle  equals  another  or  is  to  be  proved  equal  to  another,  he 
must  not  only  know  the  preceding  theorems  and  their  demon- 
strations, but  he  must  have  firmly  associated  with  the  notion 
of  equal  angles  every  way  in  which  they  have  been  demon- 
strated equal — exterior-interior  angles,  alternate-interior 
angles,  vertical  angles,  right  angles,  corresponding  angles  of 
equal  triangles,  opposite  basal  angles  in  an  isosceles  triangle, 
superimposed  angles,  angles  equal  to  a  common  angle,  etc. 


236  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Similarly,  with  the  notion  of  equal  triangles,  he  must  have 
associated  triangles  having  two  sides  and  the  included  angle 
equal,  three  sides  equal,  coincidence  on  superposition,  etc. 
These  relationships — conditions  to  general  discipline  within 
the  branch,  which  many  teachers  of  geometry  do  not  drill  into 
the  minds  of  pupils — are  far  more  many-sided  and  frequently 
recurring  than  the  theorems  themselves,  which,  when  sys- 
tematically memorized,  collectively  constitute  a  thoroughly 
adequate  specific  discipline.  So  with  the  habit  to  which 
they  are  a  condition,  the  habit  of  progressive  analysis  and 
synthesis,  with  a  view  to  the  identification  of  each  familiar 
stimulus,  and  consequently  the  drawing  of  every  formal  con- 
clusion which  is  possible  at  each  new  stage  of  the  demonstra- 
tion or  solution.  Quite  outside  of  the  formal  subject  matter 
of  geometry,  and  not  necessarily  involved  in  the  mastery  of 
theorems  whose  demonstration  is  given  by  the  text-book, 
are  specific  relationships  and  habits,  in  the  absence  of  which 
independent  general  application  within  the  geometrical  field 
itself  is  improbable.  The  relative  fewness  of  the  specific 
relationships  and  habits  essential  to  general  discipline  in 
geometry,  presents  sufiicient  contrast  with  those  essential  to 
the  general  carr)dng  over  of  a  moral  habit,  both  to  indicate 
why  an  abstract  subject  is  least  likely  to  be  in  itself  adequate 
to  general  discipline  in  other  fields,  and  to  suggest  the  fact 
that  relationships  vary  greatly  in  the  sum  total  of  specific 
associations  and  habits  necessary  to  make  them  as  general 
in  their  application  as  is  useful  and  possible.  But  each  rela- 
tionship, useful  enough  to  be  generally  applied  through  the 
independent  self-activity  of  the  pupils,  must  have  specifically 
associated  with  it  other  specific  relationships  and  habits, 
essential  from  the  standpoint  of  general  discipline,  whose 
relative  worth  is  determinable,  like  that  of  the  general  rela- 
tionship itself,  by  their  relative  many-sidedness,  frequency, 
and  sensational  or  emotional  appeal. 


CHAPTER  IX 

APPLICATION  OF  THE  TEST  OF  RELATIVE  WORTH  TO  SPECIFIC 
DISCIPLINE,  WITH  THE  CONSEQUENT  DETERMINATION  OF 
A  CUMULATIVE  AND  DOMINATING  SYSTEM,  BOTH  DI- 
RECTLY   AND   INDIRECTLY   USEFUL 

I.  Specific  Discipline  as  Essential  to  Formal  Self -activity  as  to 
Direct  Preparation  and  Specialization 

Perhaps  the  most  important  fact  that  has  been  cumula- 
tively demonstrated  in  the  preceding  discussion  is  that  the 
indirect  furtherance  of  the  educational  aim,  through  the 
various  phases  of  formal  or  educational  self-activity,  demands 
a  system  of  specific  relationships  and  habits  quite  distinct 
from  the  various  branches  of  human  knowledge  organized  as 
wholes,  or  the  even  more  complex  and  certain  systems  essen- 
tial to  direct  preparation  for  life.  While  thus  distinct  from 
both  specific  academic  learning  and  specific  preparation  for 
life,  it  is  a  necessary  part  of  each,  and  each  must  furnish  the 
basal  relationships  which  it  should  make  general,  and  with 
which  its  peculiar  relationships  must  be  specifically  and 
certainly  associated. 

Hence,  from  the  standpoint  of  specific  discipline,  the  rela- 
tionships essential  to  the  usefulness  of  cumulative  impression, 
mere  remembrance,  varying  apperception,  and 
general  discipline  are  of  the  highest  value,  and  repetition^ 
must  be  made  as  certain  and  enduring  as  those   essential  to 
directly  essential  to  life  or  to  academic  specializa-   intellectual 
tion.    Ignored  in  text-books,  omitted  from  courses   freedom, 
of   study,    neglected   by  the  mass  of  teachers, 
they  constitute  the  only  means  to  the  independent  self -activ- 
ity which  is  the  ideal  of  the  new  education.     Before  the  hu- 
man mind  can  independently  remember   and]  think  in  the 
most  useful  relationships,  it  must  have  certainly,  cumula- 

237 


238  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

lively,  and  systematically  mastered  the  relationships  which 
it  can  most  usefully  remember  by  and  think  with.  The 
slavery  of  imitation,  memorizing,  drill,  accumulation,  and 
review  must  precede  and  accompany  intellectual  and  moral 
freedom. 

Specific  discipline  includes: 

(i)  The  specific  relationships  and  systems  essential  to 
formal  self-activity  which  have  just  been  discussed  and 
illustrated.  While  distinct  from  academic  learn- 
dUcipline  "^S>  they  include  the  general  relationships  essen- 
includes  tial  to  some  academic  branches  as  wholes,  such 
t*^T w'  ^^  general  geographical  and  historical  location  and 
connected  sequence,  and  many-sided  and  frequently  re- 
systems  of  curring  terms  and  principles, 
fatio^h/ps'  (^)  ^^^  specific  relationships  and  systems 
essential  to  direct  preparation  for  life  in  general. 
Their  determination  through  the  application  of  the  general 
test  for  relative  worth  will  soon  be  discussed  and  illustrated 
under  different  phases  of  the  educational  aim.  They  include 
many  particular  academic  relationships,  and  occasionally 
academic  branches  in  part  or  as  wholes,  such  as  portions  of 
civil  government  from  the  standpoint  of  citizenship  and 
general  elementary  science  from  that  of  industrial  efficiency. 
With  these  and  the  relationships  necessary  to  such  general 
application  as  is  useful,  they  constitute  more  complex  sys- 
tems than  the  academic  branches  themselves. 

(3)  The  specific  relationships  and  systems  essential  to 
specialization.  They  include  all  academic  branches  as  wholes 
when  mastered  with  a  view  either  to  academic  or  vocational 
specialization.  Within  the  subject  matter  of  each  branch 
regarded  as  a  systematic  whole,  as  well  as  for  particular  re- 
lationships that  further  the  specialty,  the  test  of  many-sided- 
ness, recurrence,  and  emotional  appeal  is  determining. 

In  most  existing  courses  of  study  the  specific  relationships 
and  systems  essential  both  to  formal  self-activity  and  to 
direct  preparation  for  life  are  given  only  in  so  far  as  they  are 
naturally  included  in  academic  subjects.     Science,  literature, 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  239 

history,  and  civil  government,  for  example,  however  academic 
the  selection  of  their  subject  matter,  contain  a  varying 
amount  of  material  of  direct  worth  to  citizenship,  morality, 
or  industry.  History  and  geography  present  the  general 
sequences  and  locations  in  time  and  space  favorable  to  mere 
remembrance  and  varying  apperception.  But  the  most 
"formal"  or  disciplinary  subjects  of  them  all  fail  to  include 
as  an  essential  part  of  their  subject  matter  the  relationships 
favorable  to  general  discipline. 

The  application  of  the  general  test  for  selection,  within  and 
without  existing  text-books  and  courses  of  study,  should 
result,  first,  in  a  sharp  contrast  between  specific  relation- 
ships and  grouping,  most  useful,  either  in  direct  preparation 
or  academic  specialization,  and  those  relatively  less  useful; 
second,  in  the  determination  of  those  so  essential  that  they 
must  be  certainly  memorized  and  generally  applied,  and 
eventually  through  indication  of  the  relationships  most 
favorable  to  such  application,  in  the  building  up  of  inter- 
related systems  of  thought  and  action  that  will  dominate 
life  and  character. 

2.  Application  of  the  Test  to  Direct  Preparation  for  the  Variom 
Phases  of  the  Educational  Aim 
Where  the  test  of  relative  worth  has  been  applied  to  specific 
discipline,  as  it  already  has  been  to  the  other  phases  of 
formal  self-activity,  it  will  be  still  more  clearly  Rgj^tive 
evident  that,  whether  the  several  phases  of  the   worth  of  the 
educational  aim  are  to  be  directly  or  indirectly  various 
furthered,  the  means  of  determining  the  relative  J^^g  aim° 
worth  of  relationships  remain  the  same.     Indeed,   itself  only 
theoretically,  it  can  be  used  to  determine  the  theoretic- 
relative  usefulness  of  the  various  phases  of  the 
aim  themselves,  through  their  relative  many-sidedness  and 
recurrence,  both  in  the  present  or  an  ideal  civilization,  and 
in  all  succeeding  epochs  of  social  and  national  development. 
While  the  ethical  and  the  healthful,  being  general  in  their 
application  to  the  more  specific  phases  of  life,  have  always 


240  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

been  the  most  many-sided  and  frequently  recurring,  the 
extent  of  even  their  usefulness  has  varied,  both  with  geo- 
graphical location  and  in  the  course  of  human  history. 
Where  individuals  live  crowded  together,  whether  in  Eskimo 
huts  or  a  great  city,  relationships  affecting  health  are  more 
frequently  recurring  and  many-sided  than  when  they  live 
apart.  Where  physicians  are  rare  and  inaccessible,  or  their 
skill  is  limited,  more  relationships  affecting  health  are  directly 
useful  to  those  not  specialists.  Citizenship  takes  on  far 
more  many-sided  relationships  under  a  democracy  than 
under  a  despotic  form  of  government.  Industrial  efficiency 
demands  far  more  relationships  in  complex  civilization  than 
primitive  life,  but  demands  proportionately  less  many-sided 
skill  on  the  part  of  each  individual  when  industry  is  highly 
specialized.  Even  leisure,  as  pointed  out  in  discussing  cul- 
ture, is  more  frequently  recurring  as  the  condition  of  labor 
is  improved,  and  more  many-sided  as  social  life  itself  becomes 
more  complex.  If  the  relative  educational  worth  of  the  vari- 
ous phases  of  the  aim  is  to  be  theoretically  determined,  it 
must  be  through  their  relative  recurrence  and  many-sidedness 
for  the  majority  of  individuals  in  a  given  country  and  in  a 
particular  period  rather  than  through  Mr.  Spencer's  evalua- 
tion based  on  the  contribution  which  each  makes 
tini  de-  ^  ^^  racial  survival.  Practically,  however,  the  part 
voted  to  that  each  is  to  play  in  the  present  courses  of  study 
d^^^   -  is  determined  more  by  relative  difficulty  of  realiza- 

upon  rela-  tion  and  efficiency  of  method  than  by  its  relative 
tive  diflfi-  theoretical  worth.  As  each  phase  is  so  essential 
realfzation.  ^^^^  ^^  must  be  realized  as  fully  as  possible  at 
each  stage  of  educational  development,  those  that 
demand  more  or  stronger  ideals  and  incentives,  more  many- 
sided  knowledge,  more  complex  habits,  greater  system  and 
more  many-sided  application,  will  take  up  a  proportionately 
larger  part  of  the  course  of  study  and  of  the  time  available  for 
memorizing,  and  the  time  occupied  by  each  will  be  lessened  or 
increased  by  the  relative  efficiency  of  the  methods  of  instruc- 
tion which  are  brought  to  bear.    The  relative  theoretical 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  241' 

value  of  the  various  phases  will  become  determining  only  in 
case  it  shall  be  found  that  the  time  available  for  formal 
education  is  inadequate  for  the  realization  of  all,  and  conse- 
quently that  choice  must  be  made  among  them.  With  the 
course  of  study  Hmited  to  subject  matter  and  organization 
that  stand  the  test  of  relative  usefulness,  together  with  the 
introduction  of  effective  method,  the  time  available  for  formal 
education  should  be  fully  adequate.  This  becomes  even  more 
probable  if,  with  a  more  many-sided  course  of  study  which 
interchanges  physical  and  aesthetic  activities  with  mental 
work,  the  length  of  the  school  day  and  the  school  year  is 
increased  for  all  learners,  and,  through  continuation  school 
paralleling  and  for  half  of  the  day  taking  the  place  of  indus- 
trial occupation,  the  number  of  years  spent  in  formal  educa- 
tion is  extended  for  those  compelled  by  economic  conditions 
to  leave  the  ordinary  school. 

With  the  general  interest  which  has  been  aroused  in  direct 
preparation  for  life,  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  the  first 
essential  step  toward  determining  the  relative   Analysis  of 
worth  of  the  subject  matter  of  instruction — the   general 
analysis  of  general  phases  of  the  aim  into  definite  phases  of 
and  specific  ends — has  yet  to  be  taken  for  citizen-   ggsary  con- 
ship,  industrial  efficiency  and  social  service,  has   dition  to 
been    so    recently    taken    for    health    and    has  ^???^*?°? 
been  so  partially  taken  for  religion  and  morality. 

The  many-sidedness,  frequency,  and  emotional  force  with 
which  a  particular  relationship  furthers  good  citizenship  may 
be  determined  without  analysis,  but  not  the  sum  total  of  the 
relationships  which  further  it  with  most  many-sidedness, 
frequency,  and  emotional  force.  In  such  familiar  terms  as 
patriotism,  love  of  country,  obedience  to  law,  political  hon- 
esty, *  ^cheerful  co-operation,"  and  self-government  we  have 
the  present  loose  conception  of  what  good  citizenship  means. 
It  is  indefinite,  unanalyzed,  incomplete.  The  use  of  obedi- 
ence to  law,  as  an  illustration  of  the  application  of  the  test 
from  the  standpoint  of  general  discipline  and  of  equal  rights, 
as  an  example  of  the  complexity  and  system  essential  to 

16 


242  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

direct  instruction,  has  already  demonstrated  how  far  analysis 

must  go  if  the  test  is  to  be  adequately  applied.     Take,  for 

further  example,  love  of  country.     No  search  for  emotional 

material,  which  is  sufficiently  many-sided  and  frequently 

recurring  to  most  effectively  develop  it,  can  be  intelligently 

carried  on  until  it  is  analyzed  into  all  the  definite  and  specific 

factors  which  constitute  it.     It  includes  love  of  country  in  the 

physical  sense — the  love  of  mountains  and  hills,  rivers  and 

valleys,   forests  and  flowers,   gray   mists  or  sunny  skies. 

It  embraces  the  more  personal  love  of  home — of  "altars  and 

fires,"  "green  graves,"  and  scenes  of  childhood.     It  extends 

to  pride  in  national  characteristics  and  achievements — the 

simplicity  and  democracy  of  American  life,  heroic  deeds  in 

war  and  peace,  industrial  triumphs,  feats  of  engineering 

skill,  national  music,  literature  and  art.     It  finally  reaches 

confidence  in  national  power  and  influence,  and  culminates 

in  love  of  political  freedom  and  equality  for  all  mankind — 

the  spirit  of  American  democracy.     When  the  general  aim 

is  once  analyzed  into  such  definite  ideals,  the  test  of  relative 

worth  is  easy  to  apply.     It  is  not  necessary  to  compare  the 

usefulness  of  love  of  country  with  obedience  to  law,  or  even 

their  component  ideals  one  with  another.     In  their  specific 

association  together,  as  general  and  subordinate  phase  of 

citizenship,  they  are  so  many-sided,  frequently  recurring,  and 

highly  emotional  as  to  be  obviously  essential  in  their  sum 

total.     But  with  their  subordinate  ends  once  determined,  it 

becomes  easy  to  apply  the  test  to  the  selection  of  subject 

matter  that  will  not  only  be  relatively  useful  in  developing 

love   of   nature,    home,    and  national    characteristics   and 

achievement,  but  in  relating  it  to  citizenship. 

Since  formal  self-activity  is  included  in  direct  preparation, 

perhaps  the  greatest  aid  to  analysis  of  the  various  phases  of 

,     ,    .  the  aim  is  consideration  of  each  from  the  stand- 

Analysis  .   ^       r  1   ^'         • 

and  organ-     pomt  of  Cumulative  impression,   mere  remem- 

izationmust  brance,  varying  apperception,  and  specific  and 

icaUs  \fell"  8^^^^^^  discipline.    Each  form  of  educational  self- 

as  logical,      activity,  if  it  is  to  be  made  as  useful  as  possible 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  243 

to  a  particular  phase  of  the  aim,  demands  the  selection  and 
presentation  of  the  relationships  which  ensure  the  greatest 
many-sidedness,  frequency  of  recurrence,  and  emotional 
appeal  for  it,  and  at  the  same  time  specifically  bring  it  into 
definite  •  association  with  the  particular  aim.  Recognition 
of  the  feelings,  the  sentiments,  the  viewpoints,  the  interests, 
the  ideals,  and  the  public  opinion  that  cumulative  impression 
must  create;  of  the  concepts  that  are,  for  the  time  at  least,  to 
be  partial  and  merely  remembered;  of  the  knowledge  and 
information  within  the  particular  phase  which  most  certainly 
and  usefully  relate  it  to  every  other  field  of  experience  and 
every  other  field  to  it;  of  relationships  or  habits  which  must 
be  made  specific  and  sure;  of  the  further  relationships  neces- 
sary to  general  discipline  within  the  particular  phase  and 
without  it,  potentially  assists  in  analyzing  religion,  morality, 
health,  industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  citizenship,  and 
avocation  into  definite  ends,  and  in  preventing  a  partial  and 
one-sided  attempt  to  achieve  each  general  phase  through  the 
emphasis  of  some  one  of  its  more  apparent  or  more  easily 
attainable  ends  to  the  exclusion  of  others.  Civil  Govern- 
ment, "school  city,"  or  "cheerful  co-operation"  cannot 
separately  ensure  good  citizenship.  Scientific  temperance 
instruction  is  not  the  sole  antidote  for  the  social  temptations 
of  strong  drink.  Religion  must  not  remain  dogma  alone  or 
vague  emotion.  Education  itself  must  not  become  merely  a 
point  of  view.  Each  phase  of  the  aim  must  be  analyzed  into 
its  essential  parts,  and  throughout  the  course  of  education 
the  sum  total  of  relationships  that  are  most  useful,  whether 
directly  or  indirectly,  must  be  made  certain  and  permanent. 
Education,  in  place  of  being  academic  knowledge  and  disci- 
pline, which  gradually  merge  their  certainty  into  a  vague 
culture  or  point  of  view,  is  rather  a  cumulative  emergence  of 
certainty  from  impression  and  varying  apperception.  While 
at  every  stage  of  instruction  all  of  the  five  forms  of  educational 
self-activity  are  being  developed,  the  impressions  and  mere 
remembrances  of  one  stage  become  more  adequate  concepts 
in  the  next,  the  partial  concepts  and  varying  associations  of 


244  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

earlier  years,  the  habits  of  adult  life,  until  collectively  they 
form  a  system  which,  increasingly  certain  in  its  essential 
parts,  and,  therefore,  increasingly  useful  in  the  general 
trend  of  its  varying  associations,  determines  character  and 
dominates  action. 

In  the  case  of  religion  and  of  morality  the  analysis  of  the 
general  phase  into  particular  ends  has  long  been  complete. 
Logical  '^^^  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  twelfth  chapter  of 

analysis  of  Romans,  and  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Second 
^^^*^^m*  Corinthians  eloquently  specify  the  Christian  vir- 
and  health  tues.  The  Jewish  religion  largely  owes  its  per- 
relatively  petuation  to  the  definiteness  of  its  requirements, 
comp  e  e.  ^^^  their  continual  repetition  in  accordance  with 
scriptural  injunction.  The  moral  code  of  all  peoples  is 
equally  definite  and  specific.  Within  the  last  few  years  the 
conditions  essential  to  good  health  have  been  scientifically 
specified  and  demonstrated.  But  their  further  analysis  into 
such  definite  relationships  that  the  test  of  relative  worth  can 
be  applied,  together  with  both  the  general  and  detailed  analy- 
sis of  industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  good  citizenship,  and 
the  activities  proper  to  leisure,  has  been  checked  by  failure  to 
consider  the  relationships  necessary  to  formal  self-activity. 
It  is  not  only  faith,  honesty,  cleanliness,  legal  aid 
icalanafysis  ^^  ignorant  or  poverty  stricken  defendants,  the 
still  lacking  doctrine  of  equal  rights,  or  appreciation  of  litera- 
for  all  ture  that  analysis  must  reveal,  but  the  feeling 

the  aim.  ^^  faith,  the  ideal  of  honesty,  pleasure  in  cleanli- 
ness, interest  in  legal  aid,  devotion  to  equal 
rights,  and  a  love  of  literature;  the  essential  vocabulary 
of  each,  even  where  partially  understood,  and  as  many 
words  and  ideas  relating  to  each  as  can  in  varying  associa- 
tions be  held  in  mind;  the  habits  that  are  basal  for  each, 
together  with  the  associated  fields  of  application,  typical 
examples,  emotional  centers,  knowledge  necessary  to 
identification,  specific  stimuli  to  analysis  and  synthesis, 
and  all  the  other  conditions  necessary  to  their  general 
application. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  245 

Analysis,  with  a  view  to  thus  searching  out  the  specific 
relationships  favorable  to  cumulative  impression,  mere  re- 
membrance, varying  apperception,  and  general  discipline, 
goes  further  and  is  more  inclusive  than  the  mere  subdivision 
of  general  principles  into  a  formal  outline. 

3.  Determination  of  the  Relative  Worth  of  Specific  Relation- 
ships Results  in  Specific  System 

As  the  test  of  relative  worth  is  applied  to  these  definite 
and  specific  relationships  the  inevitable  result  is  system — 
a  system  not  merely  logical,  but  pedagogical  and  dynamic. 
The  definite  ends  into  which  each  phase  of  the  aim  is  ana- 
lyzed are  co-ordinated,  subordinated,  and  interrelated.  In 
place  of  comprehensive  outlines  suitable  for  the  exhaustive 
classification  of  details,  the  groups  of  relationships  proved  to 
be  most  useful  to  the  various  forms  of  educational  self- 
activity  are  associated  with  each.  If  the  most  many-sided, 
frequently  recurring,  and  usefully  emotional  are  firmly 
memorized  and  retained  not  merely  through  var3dng  ap- 
perception, but  definite  and  specific  review;  if  persistent 
instruction  gives  continuity  in  formal  education  to  what 
experience  will  give  continuity  in  life,  every  form  of  self- 
activity  will  result  through  direct  preparation  for  life,  and 
indirectly  as  well  as  directly  contribute  to  it.  It  is  in  this 
sense  that  moral  and  religious  training,  preparation  for 
citizenship,  and  education  for  every  other  phase  of  life  should 
be  formal — ^not  in  that  of  a  logically  organized  body  of 
knowledge.  It  is  this  that  Jacotot  was  groping  after  when 
he  had  Telemachus  memorized  verbatim  to  become  the 
basis  for  the  retention  and  assimilation  of  all  other  knowl- 
edge.^^ It  is  this,  limited  to  the  academic  subjects,  that  in 
the  classroom  of  Elihu  Nott  gave  Francis  Wayland  the  clue 
to  his  "new  system,"  with  its  incessant  drill  upon  the  funda- 
mental relationships  of  the  various  college  subjects.^^  It  is 
this,  forgotten  by  the  new  education  in  its  easier  develop- 
ment of  apperception  and  interest,  that  is,  after  all,  the  only 


246  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

certain  means  through  which  all  self-activity  can  be  made 
useful. 

System,  in  this  sense,  must  be  sharply  distinguished  from 
an  outline  or  mode  of  procedure  that  classifies  and  inter- 
relates according  to  some  formal  logical  scheme. 
System  ^^^^^  Any  system,  outline,  or  mode  of  procedure  tem- 
sharply  dis-  porarily  aids  mere  remembrance,  and,  so  long 
tinguishable  ^g  it  is  retained  in  part  or  as  a  whole,  continues 
o^utUne!^^^  to  further  varying  apperception.  Most  tem- 
porary, and  hence,  most  delusive  of  all,  is  the 
painstaking  outline  applicable  only  to  the  specific  details 
which  it  has  classified.  Whether  it  appHes  to  the  facts  of  a 
particular  year,  administration,  country,  or  set  of  products, 
or  the  treatment  peculiar  to  a  particular  lecture  course  or 
text-book,  the  more  elaborate  it  is,  the  more  readily  it  is 
forgotten.  Ordinarily,  its  one  possible  survival,  except 
such  details  as  it  has  held  in  mind  long  enough  for  them  to 
be  otherwise  apperceived  and  retained,  is  the  habit  of  out- 
lining, and  hence  of  analyzing,  the  particular  sort  of  subject 
matter  it  included.  In  case  the  learners  have  repeatedly 
and  successfully  made  such  outlines  for  themselves,  the 
practice  may  become  habitual,  though  mainly  within  the 
particular  subject  matter  alone,  unless,  as  is  little  likely, 
the  conditions  favorable  to  more  general  application  are 
ensured.  If  a  particular  outline  is  not  too  elaborate  in  its 
ramifications,  and  its  subject  matter  is  not  likely  to  be  held 
in  mind  in  other  relationships,  a  high  degree  of  many-sided- 
ness, frequency  of  recurrence,  and  emotional  appeal  may  jus- 
tify its  retention  through  persistent  review.  The  mass  of 
the  outlines  given  to  learners  and  required  of  them,  however, 
"the  hammering  the  facts  home,''  against  which  President 
Butler  has  so  forcibly  protested,^^  not  only  substitutes  some- 
thing to  be  remembered  for  something  to  remember  by 
and  think  with,  but  something  that  will  not  be  remembered 
long. 

The  same  conclusion  is  less  likely  to  be  true  in  the  case 
of  the  general  outline  or  mode  of  procedure    common  to 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  247 

a  considerable  number  of  particulars.    Its  de-  Even  useful 

lusive  phase  lies  in  exhaustiveness  and  elaborate-   o^tl^^ies, 

^  .  .  many-sided 

ness.     The  more  '^thorough"  it  is  in  this  sense,   and  recur- 

the  more  likely  it  is  to  be  forgotten.     More  than   ring,  but  a 
this,  an  exhaustive  mode  of  procedure  which  in-   pedagogic 
eludes  all  details  in  each  case  in  which  it  is  ap-   system, 
plied  cannot  be  general,  and  carries  the  unneces- 
sary burden  of  specific  parts  for  which  all  the  limitations  of 
the   specific   outline   hold  true.     From  the   standpoint   of 
memorizing    and  permanent  retention  its  weakness  lies  in 
the  fact  that,  both  in  these  specific  parts  and  in  those  that 
are  general,  it  is  certain  to  include  relationships  too  little 
many-sided,  recurring,  or  emotional  to  be  highly  useful. 
Restricted,  however,  to  essential  relationships,  the  general 
outline  or  mode  of  procedure  becomes  a  necessary  party 
though  but  a  part  of    the  system  whose  memorizing,  inces- 
sant review,  and  cumulative  force  constitute  direct  prepara- 
tion.    For  example,  take  the  practice  which  has  been  rather 
popular  in  the  teaching  of  geography  of   applying  to  each 
country  a  more  or  less  exhaustive  outline,  including  location, 
boundaries,  area,  population,  subdivisions,  climate,  physiog- 
raphy,   natural   products,  manufactures,  cities,    .    <.    .. 
and  all  other  topics  necessary  to  completeness,   of  the  test 
It  is  convenient  for  a  teacher  or  a  text-book   ^^  relative 
maker  who  wishes  to  be  sure  to  leave  nothing  out.   ^^tUne  ^  ^° 
If  it  could  be  readily  retained  in  school  and  after  illustrated 

school  it  would  constitute  a  memory  and   ap-  ^^^^     , 

£[eo£[raDnv 
perceiving  center.     But  it  usually  contains  far 

too  much  for  ready  retention  and  recall,  and  includes  factors 

which  either  apply  to  but  one  or  two  countries,  or  call  for 

details  which  are  neither  many-sided,  frequently  recurring, 

nor  emotional.    Few  geographies  present  subdivisions  for  the 

mass  of  countries.     If  they  do,  the  most  of  them,  together 

with  such  more  general  topics  as  area  and  population,  are  so 

little  many-sided  and  recurring  in  any  useful  connection  that 

it  is  folly  to  either  present  or  retain  them.     Boundaries 

are  useless  to  the  mass  of  learners  in  any  more  exact  sense 


248  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

than  is  involved  in  general  geographical  sequence,  that  is, 
it  is  useful  to  know  what  countries  are  adjacent,  but  usually 
useless  to  know  the  exact  curves  and  limits  of  certain  lines 
upon  a  map;  still  more  so,  except  for  the  sake  of  manual 
dexterity  or  artistic  skill,  to  draw  them  neatly.  What 
associations  come  crowding  into  the  mind  of  the  ordinary 
student  from  the  fact  that  Germany's  area  is  two  hundred 
and  eight  thousand  eight  hundred  and  thirty  square  miles, 
or  five  times  the  size  of  Pennsylvania,  or  from  whether  each 
little  curve  of  the  Rhine  is  from  east  to  west  or  north  to 
south,  whether  the  population  is  fifty  millions  or  fifty-two 
milHons  two  hundred  and  seventy-nine  thousand,  nine 
hundred  and  fifteen,  or  whether  it  is  ten  times  that  of 
Illinois!  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  general  outline  is  limited 
to  a  small  enough  number  of  topics  for  them  to  be  readily 
memorized  and  retained,  topics  that  are  common  to  all 
countries,  and  hence  many-sided  and  frequently  recurring, 
and  especially  if  they  stand  in  essential  relationship  to  each 
other,  their  mechanical  memorizing  as  common  to  all  is 
the  most  certain  guarantee  of  definite  and  intelligent  work. 
Climate  and  physiographical  features,  natural  products, 
population,  industry,  and  commerce  constitute  a  necessary 
sequence  of  topics  which  ensures  not  only  a  means  of  recol- 
lection, but  a  stimulus  to  thought  and  reflection. 

An  effective  pedagogic  grouping  such  as  this  is  a  more 
essential  factor  in  even  academic  system  than  exhaustive 
An  outline  classification.  But  in  system,  organized  for 
may  itself  direct  preparation  for  some  specific  phase  of  life, 
become  many  such  groupings  cumulatively  combine  with 
that^S^^^^'  other  interrelationships  which  are  immeasur- 
formalin  ably  more  potential  and  more  certainly  "dis- 
the  true  ciplinary"  than  the  logical  organization  which 
constitutes  academic  system.  Here  relation- 
ships are  selected  on  account  of  their  many-sidedness,  recur- 
rence, and  emotional  force,  and  not  for  the  sake  of  logical 
completeness.  They  are  related  to  each  other  not  as 
divisions  and  subdivisions,  but  as  emotional  centers,  words 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  249 

and  ideas  necessary  to  apperception  or  application,  generally 
useful  stimuli  and  conditions  favorable  to  general  discipline. 

Except  from  the  standpoint  of  specialization,  academic 
branches  are  included  not  as  wholes,  but  in  their  most  many- 
sided,   recurring,   and  emotional  parts;   not   in   ^^jademic 
isolation  from  each  other,  but  re-enforcing  each   branches 
other  wherever  they  can  be  most  useful,  whether  included  in 
in  direct  furtherance  of   the  educational  aim  or   gystem^^^ 
in    indirect    furtherance    through    formal    self-   through 
activity.     This  is  the  true  correlation  and  con-   *^®^i^  °^°^* 
centration   to  which   academic   correlation  and 
concentration,  from  the  standpoint  of  a  special  subject  or 
'^remote  from  life,"  are  at  best  but  a  helpful  condition. 
Every  imaginable  relationship,  every  branch  of  knowledge  as 
a  whole,  is  at  least  a  possible  means  to  mere  remembrance 
and  varying  apperception  or  a  basis  for  them. 

But  direct  preparation  demands,  in  place  of  the  poten- 
tially useful  but  readily  forgotten  elaborateness  and  com- 
pleteness of  exact  sciences  and  of  academic  branches  in 
general,  a  certain  and  permanent  system,  every  relationship 
of  which  has  not  only  been  selected  and  organized  for  its 
potentially  many-sided,  recurring,  and  emotional  further- 
ance of  life,  but  through  which  such  furtherance  will  become 
cumulatively  more  many-sided,  recurring,  and  emotional. 

A  good  example  of  such  a  dynamic  whole  can  be  given  by 
collectively  calling  to  mind  the  various  illustrations  which 
citizenship  has  furnished  from  the    standpoint    jj^^  peda- 
of  system  and  of  the  various  phases  of  formal     gogic  force 
self-activity.     First,  continual  consciousness  on     °^  direct 
the  part  of  teacher  and  learner  that  citizenship,     illustrated 
together  with  morality,  health,  industrial  effi-     through  ^ 
ciency,  social  service,  and  avocation,  is  the  aim     "^^^^^^hip. 
of  the  school.     No  one  of  these  aims  must  be  disassociated 
with  the  other;  no  one  emphasized  at  the  expense  of  the 
other.     With    American    citizenship    must    be    inalienably 
associated  the  idea  of  love  of  country,  of  co-operation  for 
the  general  welfare,  of  equal  rights;  with  love  of  country. 


250  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

the  emotional  centers  and  experience  which  in  highest  degree 
further  love  of  natural  scenery,  of  spots  hallowed  with  the 
sacred  associations  of  home,  and  of  essential  national  charac- 
teristics and  ideals,  pride  in  great  national  achievements  in 
war  and  in  peace;  with  co-operation  for  the  general  welfare, 
participation  in  self-government,  obedience  to  law,  the 
payment  of  taxes,  self-sacrifice  for  the  common  good,  the 
furtherance  of  national  and  international  peace  and  goodwill, 
safeguarding  of  public  interests,  defense  of  the  national  honor; 
with  equal  rights,  equality  before  the  law,  equal  suffrage, 
equal  participation  in  public  benefits.  To  each  of  these 
definite  ends  must  be  specifically  added  the  re-enforcement 
of  general  morality,  and  of  the  sum  total  of  the  feelings  and 
ideals  that  constitute  love  of  country.  With  each  must  be 
associated  such  systems  of  cumulative  impression,  partial 
concepts,  related  knowledge,  fixed  relationships  and  habits, 
and  specific  and  general  conditions  necessary  to  application 
as  have  been  illustrated  in  detail  for  equal  rights  and  obe- 
dience to  law. 

It  is  in  the  subordinate  but  essential  form  of  information 
and  related  knowledge  that  academic  system  plays  its  part 
in  direct  preparation  for  citizenship  and  each  other  phase  of 
life.  For  example,  while  equal  suffrage  must  call  to  mind 
qualifications  for  suffrage,  woman  suffrage,  naturalization, 
the  race  question,  the  habit  of  personally  exercising  the  right, 
and  so  on,  and  each  of  these,  in  turn,  must  suggest  memory 
and  emotion  centers,  specific  relationships,  and  the  condi- 
tions necessary  to  general  application,  there  should  come 
with  it  all  in  proper  association  and  subordination  facts 
and  related  groups  of  ideas  drawn  in  part  from  academic 
subjects.  To  illustrate,  qualifications  for  suffrage  should 
include  not  only  the  provisions  in  regard  to  suffrage  in  the 
United  States  constitution,  but  the  facts  which  United  States 
history  gives  concerning  the  qualifications  for  suffrage  in  the 
various  colonies,  and  steps  taken  toward  universal  suffrage 
after  the  Revolution.  To  this  should  ultimately  be  added 
the  story  of  the  English  "rotten  boroughs,"  the  Reform  Bill  of 


CULTURE'  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  251 

1832,  and  similar  material  from  modern  European  history. 
Since  knowledge  necessary  to  the  intelligent  exercise  of 
citizenship  is  an  essential  subdivision  both  of  qualifications 
for  suffrage  and  of  the  habit  of  individually  exercising  the 
right,  all  this  must  be  supplemented  by  a  highly  organized 
body  of  knowledge  concerning  qualifications  for  office  and 
public  issues.  This  embraces  not  only  various  sections  of 
civil  government,  but  much  historical,  economic,  sociological, 
literary,  and  even  scientific  material,  together  with  syste- 
matic study  of  contemporary  newspapers,  books,  and 
periodicals.  Resulting  from  this  or  added  to  it  is  a  mass  of 
incidental  information  including  both  definite  knowledge 
and  partial  concepts — ^Australian  ballot,  suffragist,  pluraHty, 
voter's  assistants,  repeaters,  and  similar  terms. 

From  the  standpoint  of  system  the  fundamental  question 
here  is,  not  shall  there  be  a  highly  complex  and  specific 
system  of  direct  instruction  organized  for  citi- 
zenship and  each  other  general  phase  of  the   v^orth^^ 
educational  aim,  but  shall  it  include  or  take  the   determines 
place    of    academic    organization.     From    the  *^®  t^*t^* 
standpoint   of   specialization   and   indirect   fur-  academic 
therance  of  the  aim,  there  is  no  question  as  to  the   systems 
necessity  for  the  logical  schemes  of  organization  ^°^?^  ^^.*  ^* 
peculiar  to  each  academic  subject.    In  the  case 
of  indirect  furtherance,  it  must  be  a  general  outline  of  the 
subject,  including,  for  the  sake  of  varying  apperception, 
such  interrelationships  as  are  most  many-sided  and  recurring 
in  every-day  life;  in  that  of  specialization,  if  vocational,  all 
that  the  usual  test  proves  essential,  and  if  academic,  the 
system  in  all  of  its  fulness  and  complexity.      But  the  extent 
to  which  academic  organization  figures,  in  direct  furtherance 
of  each  phase  of  the  aim  embraced  in  general  preparation 
for  life,  is  determined  purely  through  application  of  the  test 
of  relative  worth.     While  the  specific  relationships  selected 
become  an  essential  part  of  a  system  of  direct  preparation, 
they  are  not  necessarily  taught  in  isolation  from  other  subject 
matter  belonging  to  the  same  academic  branch.    On  the  con- 


252  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

trary,  if  the  branch  is  taught  as  a  whole,  whether  from  the 
standpoint  of  indirect  furtherance  or  specialization,  varying 
apperception  and  other  conditions  essential  to  general 
discipline  are  effectively  served  by  the  correlation  which 
results  when  the  selected  subject  matter  is  taught  as  a  part 
of  both  the  directly  useful  and  the  academic  systems. 
From  the  standpoint  of  indirect  furtherance  this  is  con- 
spicuously true  of  geography  and  history,  including  the 
history  of  science,  literature,  and  art.     From  the  standpoint 

of  specialization  it  is  true  of  any  branch  of 
usefufsys-  knowledge.  In  subjects  thus  taught  as  wholes, 
tern  possible  regardless  of  the  amount  of  directly  useful 
within  the  material  they  contain,  the  purpose  of  direct  in- 
branches.      struction  will    be  most  effectively  furthered  if 

all  essential  directly  useful  material  is  included 
and  consciously  and  continually  grouped  by  the  learner  under 
the  cumulative  topics  of  religion  and  morality,  health, 
industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  good  citizenship,  and 
avocation.  This  in  no  sense  takes  the  place  of  the  complex 
specific  systems  necessary  to  direct  furtherance,  but  use- 
fully correlates  the  academic  branches  with  them. 

When,  however,  the  subject  matter  of  the  academic 
subjects  is  taught  only  from  the  standpoint  of  direct  further- 
ance or  general  discipline,  whether  it  shall  be  presented  as 
an  academic  whole  or  academically  organized  at  all,  de- 
pends upon  the  nature  and  amount  of  academic  subject 
matter  included  through  application  of  the  test  of  relative 
worth.  For  example,  although  arithmetic  is  taught  for  the 
sake  of  industrial  efficiency  and  a  discipline  which  for  the 
most  part  is  specific,  from  both  points  of  view  it  must  be 
taught  as  an  academic  whole.  Various  applications  have 
The  scope  been  excluded  as  useful  only  to  the  specialist, 
of  academic  ^^j-  j^g  higher  processes  are  dependent  upon  the 
in^general  lower,  and  both  practical  appHcations  of  proc- 
education  esses  and  principles,  and  such  moral  and  intel- 
itrrelative  ^^^^^^^  habits  as  may  be  generally  applied,  upon  its 
worth.  mastery  as  an  academic  branch.     Hence,  it  must 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  253 

be  taught  as  an  organized  academic  whole,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  its  peculiar  organization  is  useless  to  varying 
apperception  except  through  a  confusion  of  the  many-sided- 
ness and  recurrence  of  a  particular  application  with  the 
many-sidedness  and  recurrence  of  the  material  to  which  it  is 
applied.  On  the  other  hand,  physiology  and  anatomy, 
introduced  by  the  Combes  and  Horace  Mann,  and  sanctioned 
by  Mr.  Spencer  for  the  sake  of  health,  are  rapidly  taking  on 
a  purely  hygienic  form  to  the  exclusion  of  anatomical  and 
physiological  treatment.  Here  the  subject  matter  is  directly 
useful  to  those  not  specialists  only  from  the  standpoint  of 
hygiene,  and  the  details  necessary  to  complex  academic 
organization  in  the  old  physiological  sense  are  not  included. 
A  somewhat  similar  change  in  organization  would  ultimately 
take  place  with  civil  government,  useful  to  the  majority 
only  as  directly  preparatory  to  citizenship,  were  it  not  that 
so  many  of  its  logical  groupings  are  directly  useful  in  their 
academic  interrelationships.  That  is,  civil  government, 
as  an  organized  academic  whole  itself,  becomes  a  part  of  the 
specific  system  which  furthers  good  citizenship.  With  it, 
the  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  for  the  sake  of 
direct  furtherance  will  merely  eliminate  technical  subdivi- 
sions and  prevent  the  absurdity  of  young  children  memor- 
izing the  United  States  constitution  in  all  of  its  parts. 

In  the  case  of  the  natural  sciences  the  contribution  to 
direct  furtherance  comes  in  the  shape  of  both  isolated  facts 
and  general  principles.  However  great  the  amount  of 
material  included  by  the  test  of  relative  usefulness,  such 
complexities  as  Joseph  Payne  encountered  in  his  effort 
scientifically  to  explain  the  piledriver  make  impossible  the 
teaching  of  complete  sciences  except  to  the  specialist.  But 
while  each  specific  relationship  must  become  a  part  of  the 
system  of  direct  preparation  which  it  furthers,  as  Thomas 
Hill  long  ago  pointed  out,  it  need  not  be  taught  in  academic 
isolation,  but  in  illustration  of  a  principle,  whose  study  even 
as  distinct  from  others  not  only  ensures  in  part  the  organiza- 
tion necessary  to  academic  system,  but  affords  opportunity 


254  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

for  experimentation  and  the  acquisition  of  the  intellectual 
and  moral  habits  peculiar  to  laboratory  work. 

As  for  the  general  discipline,  so  long  assumed  to  be  im- 
probable without  the  mastery  of  formal  academic  branches  as 
wholes,  an  overwhelming  sum-total  of  facts,  arguments,  and 
illustrations  has  shown  it  to  be  the  crowning  result  of  the 
systems  that  directly  prepare  for  life,  including  as  they  do  the 
cumulative  and  certain  addition  of  the  conditions  essential 
to  general  application,  in  place  of  being  the  incidental  by- 
product of  some  academic  subject  whose  chief  aim  is  a  specific 
discipline,  often  not  general  within  the  academic  field  itself. 

Educational  reform  does  not  lie  along  the  line  of  academic 
specialization  required  in  common  of  all  with  a  view  to  more 
thorough  specific  discipline.  It  permits  aca- 
system  of  demic  specialization  to  vary  with  individuals, 
education  and  subordinates  it  to  a  direct  preparation  for 
must  either  jj£g  which  collectively  constitutes  not  merely  a 
national  body  of  isolated  knowledge,  but  a  system  of 
life  or  be  mutually  helpful  activities  made  certain  by 
bvlt^^*^  repetition,  and  independent  and  continuing 
in  operation  when  formal  instruction  reaches 
its  limit.  Contrasted  with  this,  it  is  a  puerile  scheme  of 
education  which  takes  general  discipline  for  granted,  and 
leaves  direct  preparation  to  academic  outlines  and  individual 
apperception.  The  national  system  of  education  which  is 
not  compelling  enough  to  reorganize  and  develop  the  knowl- 
edge and  experience  of  a  people  is  doomed  to  be  conditioned 
and  dominated  by  the  popular  ideals  which  it  fails  to  trans- 
form. 

While  each  phase  of  life  has  its  specific  morality,  general 
morality  must  be  similarly  organized.  No  "formal  lessons" 
Education  in  morals  and  manners  can  answer  here.  Not 
for  every  j^j.  Sheldon's  moral  selections  from  literature,®^ 
direct  prep-  the  virtues  resulting  from  school  routine,  Mr. 
aration,  Fairchild's  illustrated  talks  on  boy  life,®^  the 
truly*  ^^  emphasis  of  moral  subject  matter  in  academic 
formal.  Subjects,  or,  still  less,  Mr.  White's  biographical 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  255 

course  of  study  with  its  honesty  in  the  third  grade  and 
industry  in  the  fifth.^'^  Moral  instruction  means  all  of 
this  and  something  more.  The  cardinal  virtues  must 
become  the  interrelated  centers  for  definite  systems  of 
knowledge  and  activity  in  which  each  of  the  formal  phases 
plays  its  properly  proportioned  part.  So  with  industrial 
efficiency,  as  yet  but  partially  analyzed,  social  service,  and 
even  avocation  itself.  As  for  religion,  the  church  should 
not  be  a  mere  lecture  room,  but  a  school,  and  the  Sunday- 
school,  parochial  school,  or  synagogue  not  merely  a  place  for 
formal  worship  and  purely  academic  instruction,  but  a 
training  school  for  service  in  which  rightly  directed  activities 
and  essential  relationships  are  made  certain  through  repeti- 
tion, and  become  general  through  their  continual  re-enforce- 
ment by  the  conditions  favorable  to  application. 

From  the  standpoint  of  school  administration  the  funda- 
mental deduction  from  all  this  is  that  morality,  health, 
industrial  efficiency,   social  service,   citizenship,    <tpQj.jnai" 
and  avocation  must  be  formally  taught.     This  lessons  and 
does  not  mean  merely  separate  instruction  in   text-books 
each   phase   for   a   fixed   number   of   recitation   ^f  g^.^^  ^ 
periods  in  the  weekly  program — lessons  in  morals   formal  or 

and   manners,    catechetical    instruction    on   the   Pedagogical 

whole, 
duties  of  citizenship,  or  the  academic  drill  on 

sacred  things  that  Matthew  Arnold  insisted  tended  to  breed 
irreverence.^^  Nor  does  it  mean  merely  a  logically  organ- 
ized subject  matter,  courses,  and  text-books — histories  of 
industry,  civil  governments,  and  elementary  sociologies. 
It  means  formal  instruction  that  will  develop  formal 
self-activity  through  direct  preparation  for  life,  a  formal 
instruction  of  which  formal  recitation  and  form^al  text- 
books are  but  occasional  parts.  Its  organization  is  broader 
and  more  systematic  than  that  of  the  academic  subjects 
which  it  in  part  includes.  It  constitutes  the  true  correla- 
tion which  makes  the  interrelationship  of  various  branches  a 
certain  means  to  the  useful  co-ordination  and  subordination 
of  their  subject  matter  and  activities  with  the  ideals,  the 


256  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

vocabularies,  the  knowledge,  and  the  habits  which  col- 
lectively and  systematically  form  the  training  as  a  whole. 
Here,  formal  instruction,  in  the  sense  of  organization,  means 
reorganization  of  the  course  of  study  in  its  entirety  for  the 
cumulative  development  of  a  system  in  which  co-ordination 
and  subordination  are  based  upon  the  relative  worth  of  its 
constituent  relationships  from  the  standpoint  of  both 
direct  and  indirect  furtherance  of  all  phases  of  the  educa- 
tional aim.  With  the  subject-matter  of  each  of  the  more 
many-sided  academic  branches  so  selected  and  organized, 
most  recitations  will  become,  in  part  at  least,  lessons  in 
morality,  industry,  and  citizenship,  as  well  as  in  geography, 
history,  or  literature.  For  complete  correlation  and  review 
for  at  least  part  of  the  training  essential  to  some  of  the 
phases,  separate  recitations  must  be  provided,  and  separate 
text-books  and  recitation  periods  may  become  necessary. 
The  supreme  need,  however,  is  experimentation  and  research 
in  universities  and  schools  of  education,  with  a  view  to 
providing  the  material  directly  and  indirectly  most  useful 
not  only  in  the  training  of  citizens  in  general,  but  in  that 
of  teachers,  text-book  writers,  and  makers  of  courses  of 
study. 

In  the  case  of  morality  and  religion,  as  already  pointed 
out,  the  problem  is  one  of  selection,  organization,  and 
method  rather  than  of  analysis  into  definite  ends.  That  is, 
the  problem  is  pedagogical  rather  than  moral  or  religious. 
Faith,  hope,  charity,  reverence,  obedience,  meekness, 
moral  traits,  and  Christian  virtues  must  be  taught  as  thor- 
oughly and  cumulatively  as  the  Jesuits  drilled  upon  the 
classics  and  submission  to  authority.  The  school  cannot 
Moral  and  become  a  church,  but  the  church  must  become  a 
religious  school.  In  place  of  teaching  all  biblical  passages 
education  ^^  |f  ^j^^y  ^^j.^  q£  equal  worth,  and  leaving  cor- 
must  be-  ,     .        -^  ,  ^  1  •      i        .         • 

come  more    relation  to  concordance  and  marginal  notes;  m 

truly  place  of  annual  repetitions  of  formal  readings 

lormal.  ^^  prayer-book   and  psalter,   too   isolated   and 

mechanical  to  be  cumulatively  impressive;  in  place  of  vary- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  257 

ing  and  irregular  attendance  upon  sermons  whose  topics  and 
sequence  are  determined  by  individual  judgment;  if  not  in 
place  of,  at  least  in  addition  to,  catechetical  instruction  in 
church  dogma  which  men  and  women  are  permitted  to 
forget,  for  children*  who  do  not  understand,  there  should  be 
substituted  a  cumulative  and  efficient  course  of  study  in 
moral  and  religious  life  in  which  not  only  all  the  relatively 
most  useful  ideals  and  habits  are  made  sure,  but  are  so 
continually  re-enforced  by  interrelated  knowledge  and 
activities  that  ideals  tend  to  become  consistently  dominant 
and  habits  to  be  invariable  applied.  For  example,  if  meek- 
ness and  "seeking  not  her  own''  are  really  essential  Christian 
virtues,  they  should  not  be  left  to  an  occasional  scriptural 
reading  or  eloquent  ministerial  appeal.  Each  necessary 
trait  must  be  cumulatively  developed  from  the  standpoint 
of  feeling,  vocabulary,  knowledge,  many-sidedness  of 
relationship,  habit,  and  the  conditions  favorable  to  general 
discipHne,  until  it  becomes  a  part  of  individual  life  and 
character.  With  the  masses  less  interested  in  theological 
disputation  than  has  been  the  case  since  Chrysostom  first 
plead  for  simple  faith,  and  increasingly  willing  to  serve 
their  fellows  through  the  many-sided  points  of  contact 
with  life  afforded  by  the  institutional  church,  sufficient  time 
must  be  spared  from  systematic  theology  and  higher  criti- 
cism for  priests  and  ministers  of  God  to  learn  how  to  teach. 
To  mere  homiletics  must  be  added  the  system  of  knowledge, 
ideals,  and  habits  essential  to  right  living,  more  complex  than 
theology  itself.  If  it  is  to  be  taught  effectively  to  the 
masses  still  willing  to  come  to  school,  the  separate  instruc- 
tion provided  by  a  hundred  creeds  and  tremendous  resources 
in  almost  every  community  available  for  it  must  be  ade- 
quately utilized.  The  failure  so  to  utilize  them  constitutes 
the  greatest  waste  in  present-day  education. 

The  teaching  of  morality  in  school  is  steadily  becoming 
more  formal.     Text-book  instruction  in  temperance  hygiene 
and  lessons  in  the  humane  treatment  of  animals  are  re- 
quired by  law  in  most  schools  of  the  United  States.     In 
17 


258  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

France  and  Argentina  moral  instruction  through  text-book 
and  formal  recitation  is  an  essential  part  of  the  system  of 
public  instruction.  Nowhere,  however,  has  moral  instruction 
The  teach-  taken  on  the  broadly  systematic  form  necessary 
ing  of  to   the   cumulative   organization    of    all    moral 

morality  in  knowledge  and  experience  that  can  be  furnished 
yet  formal  or  directed  through  the  school.  The  "ethical 
inthepeda-  culture"  schools  have  made  the  whole  atmos- 
gogic  sense,  pj^^j.^  ^f  |-]^g  school  moral,  as  the  parochial 
school  has  made  it  religious,  but  no  scheme  of  organiza- 
tion as  yet  persistently  repeats  all  fundamental  moral  ideas 
and  activities  in  the  relationships  most  useful  to  both  the 
direct  and  indirect  furtherance  of  morality,  until  not  only 
habits  of  morality  are  firmly  fixed,  but  the  conditions 
favorable  to  their  general  application  are  cumulatively  and 
certainly  associated  with  them.  What  the  parochial  school 
is  doing  for  dogma  and  formal  reHgious  observance  must 
be  done  even  more  persistently  and  systematically  through 
the  organized  co-operation  of  home,  church,  and  school,  for 
all  that  is  specifiically  essential  to  right  living. 

Perhaps  the  most  hopeful  field  for  the  early  development 
of  the  cumulative  system  essential  to  direct  furtherance  is 
In  hygiene  ^^^^  relating  to  health.  Here,  for  physiology 
efforts  to  or-  and  anatomy  is  rapidly  being  substituted  an 
ganize  and  organization  which  is  definitely  hygienic,  sup- 
ev^y^da^y  plemented  by  the  numerous  hygienic  activities 
life  ensure  which  medical  inspection,  school  nurses,  bureaus 
pedagogic  ^^f  health,  medical  and  other  hygienic  associa- 
^^^  ^  '  tions  are  developing  in  or  about  the  school. 
Complete  correlation  and  subordination  has  not  yet  taken 
place,  the  relative  worth  of  related  knowledge  and  activities 
has  not  yet  been  determined,  but  gradually  there  will  be 
added  to  the  formal  lessons  in  hygiene  in  their  formal  place 
in  the  week's  program  a  specifically  related  mass  of  knowl- 
edge and  experience  drawn  from  history,  geography,  litera- 
ture, sociology,  current  events,  and  the  every-day  life  of 
pupils,  community,  and   school  that  in  its  sum  total  will 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  259 

be  strong  enough  not  only  to  influence  self-activity,  but  to 
become  a  permanent  and  dominating  part  of  it. 

Industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  citizenship,  and  avoca- 
tion are  not  so  far  along.  They  have  not  yet  been  even  logic- 
ally analyzed  into  definite  ends.  Still  less  has  the  relative 
value  of  relationships  directly  furthering  them,  and  essential 
in  each  to  the  five  forms  of  educational  self -activity,  been 
determined.  But  their  complexity  has  been  revealed  through 
the  very  conflict  now  existing  between  various  means  to  their 
realization,  and  system  will  unify  conflicting  parts  as  the  test 
for  relative  worth  correlates  and  subordinates  them. 

To  sum  up,  specific  discipline,  in  the  sense  of  system, 
can  be  differentiated  into  three  distinct  forms  of  organiza- 
tion: system  which  directly  furthers  the  specific  The  test 
phases  of  the  educational  aim;  system  which  in-   compels^ 
directly  furthers  them  through  developing  formal  l^^^^^^^f 
self-activity;    and  academic  system  which  fur-   direct  and 
thers  each.     Of  these,  the  system  which  certainly  indirect 
furthers  direct  preparation  includes  and  makes  ^^^^^^^^^ 
certain  the  other  two.     It  needs  not  only  certain   academic 
habits  which  are  directly  useful,  but  the  specific  system, 
relationships  most  favorable  to  mere  remembrance,  varying 
apperception,  and  general  discipline  in  the  field  of  each  spe- 
cific aim.     From  the  standpoint  of  general  preparation,  it 
needs  for  all  learners  the  knowledge  and  the  relationships 
that  constitute  the  directly  useful  portions  of  all  academic 
subjects;  and  from  that  of  speciahzation  it  needs  for  most 
individuals,  adequate  knowledge  of  one  or  more  branches  as 
systematic  wholes.     Cumulative  impression,  mere  remem- 
brance, varying  apperception,  and  general  discipHne,  in  turn, 
demand  as  many-sided  and  certain  a  knowledge  as  possible 
of  all  academic  subjects  in  their  general  relationships,  regard- 
less of  their  direct  usefulness.     This  indirectly  useful  system, 
specifically  related  to  direct  preparation  through  the  condi- 
tions favorable  to  useful  application  in  the  various  fields,  con- 
stitutes with  it,  and  the  academic  branches  essential  to  each, 
a  complete  scheme  of  education  whose  most  useful  parts  have 


26o  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

been  determined  by  the  test  of  relative  worth,  and  made  cer- 
tain not  only  through  instruction,  but  through  their  many- 
sidedness,  recurrence,  and  emotional  appeal  in  life  itself. 

4.  Application  of  the  Test  to  Academic  Organization 
Whether  applied  with  a  view  to  direct  preparation  or  to 
formal  self -activity,  the  test  of  relative  worth  organizes  ideas 
The  test  ^^^  activities  into  at  least  partial  academic  sys- 
organizes  tem.  Where  common  school  branches  possess 
ideas  and  academic  organization  it  is  usually  essential  to 
fnto^atleast  ^^^i^  direct  usefulness.  Those  principles  and 
partial  mechanical  operations  of  arithmetic  that  survive 

academic  ^^  tests  of  elimination  and  relative  worth  are 
system* 

interdependent  and  must  be  arithmetically  organ- 
ized. Geographical  and  historical  sequence  and  location, 
together  with  the  topical  development  of  their  directly  useful 
subject  matter,  are  essential,  both  from  the  standpoint  of 
direct  furtherance  and  from  that  of  remembrance,  apper- 
ception, and  application.  Even  hygiene  follows  such  general 
anatomical  and  physiological  system  as  is  apparent  from  the 
learner's  experience  with  his  own  body. 

On  the  other  hand,  where,  as  in  the  case  of  reading,  writing, 
spelling,  and  language  work,  the  direct  usefulness  of  relation- 
Where  ships  is  not  dependent  upon  academic  grouping 

direct  or  and  order,  but  is  purely  pedagogical,  readiness  of 
indirect  fur-  remembrance  and  apperception  demands  logical 
does  not  organization  of  the  relationships  which  the  test 
demand        of  relative  worth  assigns  to  each  stage  of  instruc- 

logical  or-  ^-^j^^  Th.2X  is,  while  the  words  to  be  recognized, 
gamzation,  /  ...  -  ,    . 

pedagogical    spelled,  or  written,  and  combinations  of  words  m 

method         oral  speech  or  written  composition,  may  be  se- 

°®^*  lected  without  regard  to  their  logical  relationships, 

their  logical  grouping,  at  least  in  the  sense  of  their  association 

by  essential   similarities,  is  in  itself  pedagogical.     Words 

from  the  same  Latin  or  Greek  root  may  be  introduced  at 

different  points  in  the  school  course,  but  their  etymological 

grouping,  limited  to  those  that  are  similar  in  spelling  and 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  261 

in  meaning,  constitutes  a  highly  effective  factor  in  spelling 
method.  Similarly,  correct  forms  of  speech  having  a  com- 
mon grammatical  explanation  are  more  readily  mastered, 
if  they  are  simultaneously  or  cumulatively  taught  together. 
Where  the  partial  identity  on  which  a  particular  logical 
grouping  is  based  is  comprehended  by  the  learner  and  con- 
sciously kept  before  him,  it  becomes  a  memory  or  appercep- 
tion center. 

It  should  be  clearly  perceived,  however,  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  general  education  application  of  the  test  of 
relative  worth  not  only  ensures  academic  system,  Dgtermina- 
but  limits  it.  It  is  included  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  tion  of  rela- 
many-sided  and  frequently  recurring,  either  in  ti^e  worth 
direct  usefulness  or  in  furthering  some  phase  of  ^^  umits 
formal  self-activity,  and  not  as  a  means  to  the  academic 
comprehension  of  a  branch  of  knowledge  as  a  organiza- 
whole.  For  example,  Joseph  Payne  was  logical 
and  scientific  in  attempting  to  teach  children,  through 
individual  experimentation  with  the  pile-driver,  the  inter- 
relationship of  weight,  gravitation,  density,  porosity,  and  so 
on,  but  violated  the  principles  of  relative  worth,  both  from 
the  standpoint  of  direct  usefulness  and  of  remembrance  and 
apperception.^^  Neither  the  technique  of  the  pile-driver, 
nor  the  particular  combination  of  physical  facts  and  prin- 
ciples necessary  to  explain  its  operation  is  many-sided  or 
frequently  recurring.  A  large  part  of  the  whole  system  of 
physics  was  involved  in  an  introductory  lesson,  which,  at 
best,  represented  a  single  application  of  a  group  of  principles 
which  must  be  separately  mastered  in  the  science  itself,  as  in 
direct  preparation,  before  they  can  be  brought  into  relation- 
ship to  each  other.  Application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth 
to  the  subject  matter  of  the  natural  sciences  results  in  a  far 
more  gradual  and  partial  development  of  academic  system. 
Thomas  HilFs  selection  of  the  principle  of  oxidation  is  the 
sort  of  a  first  step  toward  scientific  system  that  direct  prep- 
aration justifies.^^  Oxidation  is  many-sided,  and  frequently 
recurring  in  its  relationship  to  combustion,  candle,  gas  light, 


262  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  oil  lamp;  to  rusting  tin  cup  and  tarnished  door  knob  or 
silver;  to  the  purification  of  the  blood  through  respiration. 
As  a  detail  of  direct  preparation  it  is  complete  in  itself.  The 
next  scientific  fact  or  principle  selected  may  be  from  physics 
or  biology,  and  have  no  immediate  academic  relation  to  it. 

Yet,  in  the  absence  of  academic  system  other  -than  that 
involved  in  the  teaching  of  useful  principles  as  yet  unrelated. 
So  limited,  laboratory  training  can  be  effectively  given  and 
academic  the  specific  discipline  peculiar  to  scientific  method 
orgamzation  developed.  If  in  this  fashion  density  has  been 
cumulative  added  to  gravity,  and  porosity  to  density,  as  of 
than  com-  sufficient  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  to  figure 
pre  ensive.  -^^  direct  furtherance,  they  can  finally  be  inter- 
related through  experimentation  with  the  pile-driver  as  one 
among  many  interesting  applications,  or  more  permanently 
combined  in  essential  academic  organization  in  so  far  as 
each  general  relationship  involved  is  itself  many-sided  and 
recurring. 

The  sum  total  of  academic  organization  resulting  from 
direct  preparation,  however,  is  limited  and  partial.  Directly 
useful  facts  cannot  be  taught  in  isolation  from 
dmeMn^the  ^^^^  other  and  yet  be  directly  useful,  but  should 
academic  at  the  outset  be  associated  through  their  common 
organization  relations  to  the  phase  of  the  aim  on  account  of 
ly^possibl^!"  whose  furtherance  they  are  selected.  Each 
should  be  taught  in  academic  relationships  as  soon 
as  they  become  possible  through  the  accumulation  of  directly 
useful  material  from  the  same  academic  subject,  but,  only  in 
so  far  as  academic  relationships  are  either  themselves  directly 
useful  or  are  indirectly  useful  through  remembrance,  ap- 
perception, and  application.  In  arithmetic  this  academic 
organization  begins  at  the  very  start.  The  interrelationship 
of  the  various  mechanical  operations  is  not  only  directly 
useful,  but  essential.  In  language  work  it  develops  far  more 
gradually,  keeping  pace  with  the  cumulative  development  of 
the  habits  necessary  to  correct,  varied  or  expressive  speech. 
Except  in  so  far  as  formal  grammar  contributes  to  this  end, 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  263 

it  has  no  place  among  the  required  school  subjects.  The 
habit  of  logical  analysis  which  justifies  parsing  even  in  the 
eyes  of  Matthew  Arnold  can  be  developed  more  usefully, 
retained  more  permanently,  and  applied  more  generally,  if 
formed  as  one  of  the  conditions  favorable  to  the  carrying 
over  of  directly  useful  relationships  through  the  general 
discipline  essential  to  each  phase  of  direct  preparation.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  precisely  these  conditions  that  ensure 
formal  organization  to  history  and  geography.  Even  if  their 
directly  useful  subject  matter  were  not  so  inclusive  as  to  ad- 
mit of  topical  classification  which  directly  contributes  to 
industry,  citizenship,  and  other  specific  aims,  it,  in  any  event, 
furnishes  highly  useful  remembrance  or  apperception  centers, 
while  general  geographical  and  historical  sequences  and  loca- 
tions peculiarly  further  remembrance,  apperception,  and, 
therefore,  application. 

This  is  also  true  of  literature  and  art.  Partial  academic 
organization  based  upon  the  relative  worth  of  component 
relationships,  both  to  direct  furtherance  and  The  test  will 
formal  self-activity,  is  essential  enough  to  be  ensure  dif- 
firmly  memorized  and  retained  by  all  learners  at  f erent  selec- 
each  stage  of  instruction.  orgaSfation 

In  the  elementary  course  of  study  the  effect  within  the 

will  probably  be  confined  to  the  selection  of  di-  elementary 

Dranches. 
rectly  useful  material  within  the  present  common 

school  branches,  the  modification  of  academic  organization 

from  the  standpoint  of  the  relative  educational  worth  of 

relationships,  and  the  reorganization  and  correlation  of  all 

subject  matter  and  experience  from  the  standpoint  of  direct 

furtherance,  so  far  as  it  can  be  controlled  by  the  school. 

In  the  high  school  and  the  college  each  subject  required 

of  all  students  must  be  similarly  tested  and  reorganized,  with 

the  further  probability  of  the  addition  to  the 

required   subjects   of    parts   of   other  branches   branches, 

extensively  enough  drawn  upon  for  the  sake  of   essential 

direct  furtherance  to  make  academic  organization   gfective  will 

aid  both  it  and  formal  self-activity.     Sociology,   be  required. 


264  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

ethics,  economics,  political  economy,  civics,  psychology, 
chemistry,  physics,  and  biology,  in  so  far  as  they  are  not 
already  required  branches,  will  in  part  become  so.  The 
point  in  the  course  of  study  at  which  each  should  be 
studied  as  a  separate  subject  depends  upon  the  amount  of 
its  subject  matter  found  immediately  and  directly  useful,  and 
the  relative  direct  and  indirect  usefulness  of  its  organization 
as  compared  with  that  of  other  subjects.  Where  time  avail- 
able for  memorizing  is  not  adequate  for  both  direct  prepara- 
tion and  separate  instruction  in  all  useful  subject  matter 
that  has  reached  the  stage  of  accumulation  in  which  more 
complete  academic  organization  is  possible  and  useful,  rela- 
tive usefulness  of  organization  also  determines  which  branches 
shall  be  separately  studied  and  which  postponed.  In  any 
event,  relationships  selected  from  each  will  figure  at  every 
stage  of  advancement  in  cumulative  organization,  both  di- 
rectly useful  and  academic. 

When,  as  America  was  first  beginning  to  feel  the  Pesta- 
lozzian  influence,  Thomas  Hill  sought  to  reconcile  psycho- 
logical and  logical  order  in  his  "True  Order  of 
The  ^'sDirfll 
method  "       Studies,''  he  believed  that  the  necessary  logical 

unlike  sequence,  in  which  the  various  branches  follow 

cumulative  ^^^^^  other  as  completed  wholes,  corresponds 
based  upon  with  the  natural  order  of  the  periods  in  which  the 
mere  abil-  powers  of  the  soul  attain  their  maturity.  It 
*7ehend"^"  ^^l^^^s  that  since  ''the  powers  of  the  soul  are 
developed  somewhat  simultaneously,''  the  vari- 
ous divisions  of  human  knowledge  should  ^^in  every  stage  of 
common  or  liberal  education  keep  proportionately  pace 
with  each;  that  the  parent  or  teacher  should  watch  the 
development  of  the  child's  mind  and  character,  giving  it  the 
higher  truth  as  soon  as  it  is  prepared  for  it;  but  remembering 
that  one  necessary  part  of  the  preparation  is  the  study  of 
lower  truths."^^  This  "circle  of  human  sciences,"  "bound 
together  in  an  ascending  spire^^ — the  obvious  inspiration  for 
the  "spiral"  or  "concentric"  order  of  instruction — vainly 
emphasizes  the  truth  that  partial  academic  organization  and 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  265 

interrelation  is  possible  at  each  stage  of  instruction.  Had  its 
argument  been  comprehended  and  heeded,  there  would  have 
been  no  disorganization  of  the  various  branches  in  their 
elementary  stages,  no  number  work,  language  lessons  and 
nature  study,  which,  in  the  effort  at  simplicity,  presented 
ideas  and  activities  in  isolation  from  those  on  which  de- 
pended not  only  their  permanent  usefulness,  but  their  readiest 
mastery.  Its  fault  lies  in  the  assumption  that  each  logical 
relationship  should  be  developed  just  as  soon  as  it  can  be 
understood.  There  are  many  relationships  capable  of  im- 
mediate comprehension  which  lack  immediate  usefulness. 
Application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth,  including  at  each 
stage  of  development  immediateness  of  many-sidedness, 
recurrence,  or  emotional  appeal,  not  only  prevents  the  two 
extremes — academic  organization  that  children  cannot  put 
to  use  and  isolated  knowledge  and  activities  relatively  use- 
less through  lack  of  organization,  but  the  misapplication  of 
the  spiral  method  which  develops  useless  relationships  at 
each  stage  of  advancement  merely  because  they  can  be 
understood. 

It  also  lays  bare  the  relative  inefficiency  of  the  "incidental 
instruction"  of  some  primary  schools  which,  at  its  best  in  the 
hands   of   a   great   teacher,    means    systematic 
organization  of  material  in  direct  relation  to  Hfe  in&truct^*^' 
without  the  aid  of  academic  grouping.     In  the   and  arti- 
hands  of  the  mass  of  culture-epochists,  including   ^cml  corre- 
too  often  the  Herbartians,  it  has  meant  temporary  necessary, 
and    artificial    organization   based   upon    some 
story  of  primitive  life  and  nascent  racial  interest.     At  its 
worst  it  has  meant  the  teaching  of  facts  which  are  "simple" 
through  their  isolation  from  all  system    and    organization 
other  than  immediate  childish  experience.     If  it  was  not  for 
the  fact  that  life  itself  outside  the  school  inexorably  super- 
imposes its  relationships,  classifications,  and  systems,  the 
product  of  such  "simple"  instruction  would  be  hopelessly 
simple  children. 

In  this  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  to  the  rela- 


266  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

tionships   which    collectively   form   academic   organization 
discipline  is  not  forgotten. 

The  cumulative  organization  directly  useful  and  indirectly 
useful,  of  both  experience  and  academic  knowledge,  is  the 
Cumulative  ^^^^  means  to  the  continuity  essential  to  disci- 
system  pline,  both  specific  and  general.  Each  formal 
favorable       branch  develops  so  slowly  that  its  useful  habits 

to  both  1  1       .         1  .  .       1         r  ,1 

specific  and    ^^^  relationships   are   smgly   formed   and  per- 
general  sistently  used  at  each  successive  stage  of  com- 

iscip  ne.  piexity  before  the  next  is  reached.  The  relative 
certainty  that  an  even  less  determined  and  systematic 
treatment  has  long  given  to  the  mechanical  operations  of 
arithmetic  will  be  shared  and  exceeded  by  what  is  essentially 
useful  in  every  branch.  Through  the  partial  organization 
of  each,  any  intellectual  or  moral  habit  that  it  peculiarly 
furthers,  generally  useful  in  high  degree,  will  be  more  cer- 
tainly developed  than  when  the  whole  multitude  of  relation- 
ships involved  in  the  mastery  of  the  branch  as  a  whole  are 
developed  with  it.  There  is  nothing  in  the  habits  of  observa- 
tion, discrimination  and  interpretation,  accuracy,  perse- 
verance and  open-mindedness  resulting  from  laboratory 
practice  that  cannot  be  effectively  gained  by  experimenta- 
tion illustrative  of  principles  selected  from  various  natural 
sciences,  through  applications  that  will  continue  to  be  useful 
in  the  every-day  life  of  individuals  who  will  not  become 
scientific  specialists.  There  is  no  mathematical  habit  that 
cannot  be  more  effectively  taught  through  the  more  per- 
sistent study  of  the  parts  of  arithmetic,  algebra,  and  geom- 
etry, generally  and  permanently  useful  to  others  than 
mathematicians,  than  through|the  concentrated  study  of 
each  as  a  whole,  soon  to  be  forgotten  as  a  whole  by  the  mass 
of  students.  Or,  as  Mr.  Bain  pointed  out,  there  is  no  linguis- 
tic habit  that  cannot  be  more  permanently  taught  through 
the  cumulative  application  of  such  parts  of  English  grammar 
as  are  continually  essential  to  a  correct  and  graceful  style,®^ 
than  by  all  the  concentrated  analysis  of  inflection  and 
construction  that  Cicero,  Pliny  and  Quintilian,  and  Ascham 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  267 

and  Sturm  fastened  upon  the  modern  grammar  school  and 
college. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  no  matter  how 
limitation  of  subject  matter  within  an  academic  branch  may 
tend  to  ensure  specific  discipline,  general  disci-  con-ejation 
pline  demands  close  correlation  with  direct  prep-  of  academic 
aration.  Habit  that  is  based  upon  concentrated  system 
instruction  may  be  limited  to  the  school,  while  preparation 
that  based  upon  persistent  usefulness  in  every-  essential  to 
day  life  is  permanent  and  continuing.     Whether   ^f^Vf} 

uiscmlinG 

the  habit  is  developed  in  directly  useful  experi- 
ence or  through  academic  organization,  it  is  direct  prepara- 
tion, and  direct  preparation  alone,  that  definitely  relates  it 
to  the  conditions  favorable  to  its  general  and  useful  appli- 
cation. The  pure  science,  the  purely  academic  subject  as  a 
whole,  is  concerned  only  with  itself. 

5.  The  Reorganization  of  the  Course  of  Study  Into  a  Dynamic 
System  of  Essentially  Useful  Relationships 
The  effect  of  application  of  the  test  upon  the  course  of 
study  academically  considered  is  less  revolutionary  as 
regards  the  branches  included  than  in  what  they  ^ess  change 
include,   and  its  sharp  discrimination  between  in  branches 

what  must  be  remembered  by  all  in  common  and  *^^°,  "J 

...  .  what  they 

what  can  be  left  to  a  variable  individual  choice,   include  and 

The  general  academic  organization  of  the  arts  make 
and  science  course  will  probably  remain  much  *^®^*^^- 
the  same.  In  the  high  school  and  the  college  the  effect  will 
be  similar,  its  most  striking  phase  being  a  partial  reversal 
of  required  and  elective  subjects.  All  students  will  be  re- 
quired to  master  cumulatively  the  portions  of  psychology 
and  ethics,  literature  and  art,  sociology,  economics  and 
political  economy,  elementary  mathematics,  and  the  natural 
sciences  that  are  essential  through  high  degree  of  both  direct 
and  indirect  usefulness.  Among  these,  general  history,  to- 
gether with  literature  and  art,  must  early  be  organized  as 
separate  branches  on  account  of  the  general  historical  and 


268  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

geographical  sequence  and  location  essential  as  memory  and 
apperception  centers.  Granted  that  their  fundamental 
groupings  are  continually  reviewed  throughout  the  college 
course,  the  prevalent  academic  specialization  in  historical 
periods  and  epochs  and  in  periods  and  phases  of  Hterature 
or  art  will  doubtless  continue  on  account  of  the  almost  limit- 
less historical  and  artistic  details  of  approximately  equal 
value  from  the  standpoint  of  both  service  and  culture.  But 
the  basis  of  selection  will  not  continue  to  be  merely  scientific 
or  aesthetic.  In  every  historical  period  and  in  every  phase 
of  art,  what  is  relatively  most  useful  in  direct  furtherance  of 
religion  and  morality,  health,  industry,  social  service,  and 
citizenship  will  be  included.  The  application  of  the  same 
relative  test  to  interrelationships  as  to  details  will  probably 
prevent  the  directly  useful  material  thus  included  from  be- 
ing organized  into  such  separate  and  specific  branches  as  the 
history  of  hygiene  or  industry,  or  morality  as  taught  in  litera- 
ture and  art.  Many  details  have  both  directly  and  indirectly 
useful  relationships  which  separate  presentation  of  each  phase 
of  direct  preparation  would  tend  to  overlook.  But  topical 
organization  in  furtherance  of  each  specific  general  aim  is 
essential  within  every  historical  period  and  phase  of  culture. 
Paralleling  this  organization  into  academic  branches  is 
the  far  more  complicated  system  of  direct  preparation,  of 
Academic  which  these  topics  within  the  academic  branches 
organization  are  a  part.  The  chief  disturbance  of  the  present 
paralleled  college  and  high  school  program  will  be  the  cre- 
cumulative  ^^ion  of  specialties  organized  for  direct  useful- 
system  of  ness  to  each  general  phase  of  the  educational  aim, 
which  It  IS  a  through  which  all  formal  subject  matter  is  corre- 
lated with  current  experience,  and  cumulatively 
subordinated  as  part  of  the  direct  preparation  which  has 
gone  before.  The  relative  proportion  of  the  formal  pro- 
gram that  direct  preparation  will  consume  can  be  determined 
only  through  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth,  to- 
gether with  experimentation  in  actual  instruction.  It  does 
not  stop  with  the  separate  academic  organization  of  re- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  269 

quired  relationships  in  ethics,  hygiene,  economics,  sociology, 
politics,  and  aesthetics,  but  will  put  them  into  their  most 
useful  and  permanent  association  with  a  great  system  of 
ideals,  facts,  interrelationships,  habits,  and  general  disci- 
plines which  has  cumulatively  resulted  from  selection,  or- 
ganization, and  instruction  on  the  basis  of  relative  usefulness 
from  the  beginning  of  formal  instruction  and  throughout  each 
successive  stage  of  education.  The  simplest  step  that  can 
be  taken  toward  reorganization  is  the  placing  of  the  directly 
useful  subjects  just  discussed  among  the  required  branches, 
and  the  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  to  them  as 
to  history,  literature,  and  art  in  the  selection  and  organiza- 
tion of  their  subject  matter  and  the  determination  of  the 
order  in  which  they  shall  come  in  the  course  of  study. 

As  to  mathematics  and  the  natural  sciences,  if  the  test  of 
relative  worth  is  rigidly  applied,  the  first  year  of  the  high 
school  is  likely  to  present  a  varied  selection  of  Higher 
facts  and  principles  in  which  arithmetic,  algebra,   mathemat- 
geometry,  and  all  branches  of  natural  science  are  J^^  ^pechJ- 
each  in  part  represented.     In  mathematics  this  ist,  but  not 
will  mean  a  year  of  required  work,  divided  be-   *^®  general 
tween  advanced  arithmetic,  the  phases  of  algebra   of^g^h* 
most  directly  useful,  and  possibly  two  or  three  natural 
books  of  geometry.     In  science  it  will  involve   science, 
general  or  elementary  science  in  the  form  of  laboratory  work 
in  which  the  most  directly  and  immediately  useful  facts 
and  principles  of  all  sciences  are  experimentally  illustrated. 
Beyond  the  first  high  school  year  mathematics  will  be  con- 
fined to  specialization  except  for  the  time  spent  in  review, 
while  the  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  will  de- 
termine the  order  in  which  the  various  natural  sciences  shall 
be  taught.     There  will  probably  be  enough  directly  useful 
material  in  each  for  it,  when  added  to  the  general  relation- 
ships useful  as  memory  and  apperception  centers,  to  justify 
the  requirement  of  each  as  a  specific  branch,  though  not  in 
the  exhaustive  detail  now  characteristic  of  physics,  chemistry, 
or  biology. 


270  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

After  college  entrance,  the  different  environment  and 
methods  of  instruction  and  the  possible  development  of  new 
Attempt  at  ii^^ii^idual  capacities  or  interests  justify  one  last 
specializa-  effort  to  redetermine  or  verify  the  line  of  special- 
tion  in  each  ization  which  each  individual  has  been  following. 

academic 

field  should  '^^^  required  subjects  as  redetermined  by  the 
be  made  test  ensure  contact  at  this  stage  of  development 
after  college  ^^^j^   ^n   general    branches   of    knowledge  with 

entrance 

the  exception  of  language,  mathematics,  and 
the  laboratory  phases  of  science.  Mainly  to  test  again 
mathematical  ability,  and  only  secondarily  for  the  sake 
of  a  peculiar  discipline,  a  term  should  be  taken  in  either 
algebra  or  geometry.  From  the  same  standpoint,  a  term 
of  laboratory  work  in  some  science  should  also  be  re- 
quired, as  opposed  to  laboratory  work  in  all  for  a  partial 
and  useless  rediscovery  of  facts  and  principles.  Adequate 
preparation  for  both  will  have  been  ensured  through  the 
persistent  review  throughout  the  high  school  course  of  the 
parts  of  mathematics  and  natural  science  essential  through 
their  high  degree  of  general  usefulness.  While  as  already 
demonstrated,  there  is  no  ground  on  which  language  can  be 
required  other  than  direct  usefulness  or  broader  appercep- 
tion in  some  special  field,  on  this  latter  ground  at  least, 
mastery  of  one  foreign  language  should  with  rare  exceptions 
be  exacted  of  all,  if  not  through  specialization  previous  to 
college  entrance,  at  least  to  keep  the  way  open  at  the  close 
of  the  college  course  for  unexpected  phases  of  specialization 
that  require  foreign  languages.  Only  students  who  show 
marked  incapacity  for  foreign  languages  or  certain  to 
specialize  in  fields  which  do  not  require  them,  should  be 
permitted  to  ignore  them  altogether. 

Finally,  in  order  that  the  learner  shall  be  continuously 
conscious  of  the  relative  usefulness  of  what  he  is  being  taught 
and  correct  in  the  judgments  necessary  to  general  discipline, 
he  must  cumulatively  master  parts  of  pedagogy  and  logic. 
They  will  probably  be  gradually  developed,  however,  as 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  271 

phases  of  direct  preparation,  rather  than  presented  as  separate 
branches. 

This  forecast  of  the  reorganized  course  of  study  is  at  best 
wholly  theoretical  and  tentative.  Valid  determination  and 
organization  can  come  only  through  the  actual  application 
of  the  test  of  relative  worth,  from  the  standpoint  of  both 
direct  and  indirect  furtherance  of  the  educational  aim. 
Probably  no  academic  subject  is  generally  useful  in  all  of  its 
parts.  Mastery  of  the  utmost  detail,  academic  complete- 
ness, pure  science,  should  not  be  required  of  all  in  a  common 
field  in  the  general  school  and  college  course.  It  belongs 
to  specialization,  and  even  there,  rarely  to  vocational 
specialization  except  in  the  high  sense  of  the  advance- 
ment of  science. 


6.  Application  of  the  Test  to  Specialization 

Distinction  must  be  made  between  at  least  three  kinds  of 
specialization — first,  exhaustive  mastery;  second,  mastery 
of  all  that  is  essential  to  a  specific  vocation,  xhree  dis- 
whether  liberal  or  industrial;  and  third,  mastery  tinct  kinds 
of  an  elective  subject  in  furtherance  of  subjective  °*  ^P^' 
adaptation  that  either  takes  the  form  of  avocation  variously 
or  leads  to  vocation  or  exhaustive  mastery.  In  affected  by 
each  form  of  specialization  the  application  of  *^®  *®^** 
the  test  of  relative  usefulness  determines  the  order  of  worth 
of  both  the  relationships  directly  useful  to  the  specialty, 
and  those  favorable  to  general  discipline  and  other  formal 
activity  within  its  specific  field  of  operation.  In  each  the 
branch  as  a  whole  may  or  may  not  be  included.  In  ex- 
haustive mastery  alone  is  every  detail  of  the  branch  as  a  whole 
or  some  part  of  it  thoroughly  mastered.  Since  at  times  both 
vocational  and  subjective  specialization  are  exhaustive,  it 
is  easy  to  understand  why  the  popular  conception  of  special- 
ization is  exhaustive  knowledge. 

In  each  phase  of  specialization,  the  test  of  relative  immedi- 
ate worth  distinguishes  between  what  is  to  be  made  definite 


272  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  certain,  and  what  can  be  left  to  varying  apperception. 

With  the  exception  of  exhaustive  mastery,  including  the 

study  of  the  exact  sciences,  it  also  determines  the  selection 

of  the  whole  content.     In  the  case  of  vocation  or  exhaustive 

mastery,  involving  the  correlation  of  various  branches,  it 

further  determines  the  order  in  which  the  essential  subjects 

shall  be  mastered.     Finally,  with  the  exception  of  the  exact 

sciences,  it  indicates  the  relationships  that  shall  first  be  made 

certain,  and,  as  in  direct  preparation  in  general,  develops 

essential  system.     Even  in  the  case  of  an  exact  science,  it 

reveals  the  conditions  favorable  to  general  discipline  within 

the  science  itself. 

These  results  of  the  test  can  be  readily  illustrated  in  each 

form  of  specialization.     At  first  thought,  determination  of 

the  relative  usefulness  of  material  to  be  exhaust- 

distin-  ively  mastered  or  included  in  an  exact  science 

guishes  be-    appears  to  be  without  practical  application — all  is 

tween  the      ^q  j^g  included  and  studied.  But  all  the  material  of 

ess6n.ti3.1 

and  optional  specialization  cannot  be  certainly  memorized  and 

material  of  permanently  retained.  The  solution  of  particular 
tion^*^  ^^'  theorems  of  geometry  will  be  in  part  forgotten 
even  by  the  mathematical  specialist,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  student  who  elects  to  study  them.  The  essential 
thing  is  that  both  shall  know  where  to  apply  them  and  where 
to  find  them.  The  successive  steps  in  the  solution  of  a  par- 
ticular proposition  are  confined  to  it  alone,  and  its  apphca- 
tions  may  be  shown  by  the  test  to  be  few  and  rare.  But  the 
successive  steps  essential  to  the  original  solution  of  any  prop- 
osition must  be  ground  into  the  memory.  For  example, 
take  not  only  the  habit  of  successively  combining  the  newly 
derived  fact  of  an  original  demonstration  with  all  given 
facts  until  the  stimulus  to  mathematical  judgment  is  identi- 
fied, but  the  groups  of  possible  associations  that  each  fre- 
quently recurring  fact  possesses.  As  already  pointed  out, 
the  fact  of  equality  of  angles  must  be  so  mechanically 
associated  with  opposite  vertical  angles,  alternate-interior 
and  exterior-interior  angles,  right  angles,  angles  whose  sides 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  273 

are  parallel,  superimposed  angles,  angles  equal  to  a  common 
angle,  opposite  angles  at  the  base  of  an  isosceles  triangle, 
angles  of  an  equilateral  triangle,  and  corresponding  angles  of 
equal  triangles,  that  they  automatically  suggest  themselves 
in  succession,  or  short-circuit  the  identification  through  the 
suggestion  of  some  stimulus  in  the  geometrical  figure  itself. 
Or,  to  take  an  example  from  physics,  it  is  far  more  essential 
to  have  reduction  in  the  volume  of  a  gas  certainly  associated 
with  pressure,  reduced  temperature,  mixture  of  gases,  and  all 
other  possible  explanations,  than  to  readily  recall  the  mass  of 
details  which  may  be  logically  associated  with  each.  Simi- 
larly, in  the  mastery  of  a  language,  the  personal  and  tense 
endings  of  verbs,  the  signs  for  the  case  and  declension  of 
nouns  should  be  mastered  by  the  incessant  and  persistent 
drill  that  is  often  centered  on  a  specific  declension  or  conju- 
gation which  has  not  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  their  many- 
sidedness  and  recurrence. 

Within  the  field  of  vocational  specialization  the  need  for 
the  test  is  just  as  great.  The  National  Confederation  of 
State  Medical  Examining  and  Licensing  Boards,  at  its 
meeting  at  St.  Louis  in  19 10,  favorably  discussed  the  proposi- 
tion to  discriminate  between  the  parts  of  materia  medica 
essential  to  the  general  practitioner  and  the  balance  of  its 
sum  total  which  neither  practitioner  nor  student  can  long 
retain.^^  The  common  practice  of  approving  or  rejecting  the 
work  of  students  in  academic  or  professional  examinations  on 
questions  involving  the  pettiest  details  that  petty  minds 
happen  to  unearth  or  remember  is  neither  pedagogic  nor 
scientific.  The  very  necessity  for  thoroughness  in  specialty 
or  profession  makes  discrimination  essential.  Such  dog-and- 
the-shadow  thoroughness,  which  loses  the  useful  in  vain 
snatches  at  the  unattainable,  must  be  sharply  contrasted 
with  the  habit  of  exhaustive  study  or  observation  vitally 
necessary  in  selected  instances  of  application.  Here,  as  in 
direct  furtherance  in  general,  the  test  is  not  only  necessary 
to  determine  the  habit  to  be  formed,  but  the  instances  to 
which  it  is  to  be  applied. 

18 


274  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

Indeed,  the  very  habit  of  exhaustive  observation  furnishes 
excellent  illustration  of  the  test's  determining  not  only 
relative  worth  from  the  standpoint  of  discrim- 
determines  i^^^ting  between  essential  and  optional  material, 
the  order  but  the  order  in  which  essential  material  shall 
in  which  the  j^g   mastered.     Since   no   habit   is   more   highly 

ess  611113.1 

material  of  useful  in  natural  science,  more  many-sided  in  its 
specializa-  application,  and  frequent  in  its  useful  recurrence, 
mTsttred!'^  it  should  be  developed  at  the  very  start.  This 
is  why  Agassiz  kept  returning  the  student  of 
natural  history  again  and  again  and  again  to  the  study  of 
the  same  old  fish  when  he  first  entered  upon  his  course  of 
training  in  the  pioneer  summer  school  down  by  the  sea. 
Within  the  field  of  specialization,  then,  as  in  that  of  general 
furtherance,  application  of  the  test  must  determine  the 
relationships  so  directly  useful  that  they  must  be  transformed 
into  fixed  groups  and  habits,  the  order  in  which  they  should 
be  mastered,  and,  as  a  result,  the  specific  system  within  the 
specialty  whose  certain  and  permanent  mastery  is  essential 
to  its  direct  usefulness  and  the  general  discipline  which 
direct  usefulness  demands.  Not  only  is  this  true  of  the 
material  within  a  special  branch,  but  of  the  order,  correla- 
tion, and  subordination  of  branches  in  the  specialized  field. 
Immediateness  of  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  is  what  led 
the  late  Dean  Spangler  to  regret  the  temporary  necessity 
which  made  engineering  students  make  up  deficiencies  in 
mathematics  through  summer  study  divorced  from  those 
phases  of  work  in  which  it  is  applied.  Efficiency  not  only 
demands  that  the  various  divisions  of  a  specialty  shall  be 
taught  in  the  order  of  their  immediate  usefulness,  but  that 
all  essential  interrelationships  shall  be  similarly  ordered. 

7.  Specialization  in  Portions  of  Mathematics  a    Necessary 
Preparation  for  Many  Vocations 

Whether  for  the  sake  of  exhaustive  mastery  or  vocational 
specialization,  no  subjects  are  more  generally  essential  than 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  275 

mathematics  and  the  modern  languages.  The  laws  of  every 
science  are  reducible  to  mathematical  form  and  all  scientific 
research  must  be  mathematically  interpreted.  Applied 
mathematics  dominates  every  phase  of  engineering  and 
figures  prominently  in  various  other  vocations.  A  large 
proportion  of  students  will,  therefore,  engage  in  the  special- 
ized study  of  various  selections  from  its  advanced  phases, 
while  a  few  will  study  it  exhaustively,  either  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  rare  vocations  requiring  completeness  of 
mathematical  knowledge,  or  to  ensure  the  advancement  of 
mathematical  science.  It  has  not  as  yet  been  fully  enough 
realized  that  although  mathematics  is  an  exact  science, 
its  various  branches  are  so  little  interdependent  that  the 
introductory  parts  of  one  can  in  most  instances  be  thor- 
oughly mastered  with  little  regard  to  others.  Of  course, 
where  the  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  demands 
the  mastery  of  some  advanced  portion  of  a  particular  branch, 
more  general  specialization  becomes  necessary.  It  is  not 
impossible,  however,  that  the  result  of  the  j^  ^  ^^ 
test  for  specialization  in  certain  vocations,  as  limited, 
for  direct  preparation  in  general,  may  be  a  however, 
marked  reduction  in  the  amount  of  mathematics  the^^v^ious 
covered,  which  would  ensure  concentration  mathe- 
quite  as  effectively  as  increasing  the  time  de-  ^^t^cal 
voted  to  mathematics  in  the  school  program. 
That  is,  with  the  limitation  of  advanced  mathematical 
study  to  the  specialist,  and  the  consequent  reduction  of  the 
recitation  time  wasted  in  exposing  and  correcting  individual 
deficiency,  the  still  further  advantage  of  less  material  to 
master  should  ensure  the  time  for  the  persistent  review 
indispensable  to  certainty  and  permanence  of  mastery. 

At  least  two  classes  of  individuals,  not  now  certainly 
included  among  serious  students  of  mathematics,  should 
participate  in  this  specialization — all  advanced  students 
who  are  at  all  likely  to  engage  in  scientific  research,  and  all 
children  in  the  elementary  school  who  show  marked  arith- 
metical ability.     The  former  should  be  compelled  to  exhibit 


276  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

facility  in  statistical  method  before  being  admitted  to 
candidacy  for  the  doctor's  or  master's  degree  through  any 
course  involving  statistical  research;  the  latter  should  be 
given  opportunity  for  specialization  through  admission  to 
high  school  classes  in  mathematics,  the  organization  of  special 
classes  centrally  located,  or  individual  instruction  that  will  as 
effectively  meet  such  cases  as  it  has  been  here  and  there 
planned  to  meet  exceptional  deficiency.  Whatever  the  stage 
of  instruction,  however,  at  which  mathematical  specializa- 
tion begins,  it  should  be  given  by  an  instructor  who  will 
not  only  clearly  explain  the  successive  steps  in  the  demon- 
stration of  particular  theorems  and  ensure  the  persistent 
repetition  necessary  to  mathematical  habit,  but  possess 
pedagogical  training  adequate  to  general  discipline  within 
the  field  of  the  special  mathematical  branch. 

8.  Specialization  in  Some  Modern  Language  Broadens  Ap- 
perception, Is  Helpful  in  the  Majority  of  Vocations, 
and  Desirable  from  the  Standpoint  of  Avocation. 

While  mastery  of  a  foreign  language  is  not  essential  to 
apperception  in  general,  it  tends  to  broaden  it  in  specific 
fields.  If,  however,  it  is  allowed  to  take  the  place  of  direct 
preparation,  and  absorbs  an  undue  proportion  of  time  in 
grammatical  subtleties  and  mechanical  mastery,  language 
study  may  actually  serve  as  a  check  upon  more  general 
apperception  through  the  vernacular.  For  this  its  abstract 
discipline  offers  no  compensation.  There  is  nothing  in  it 
peculiar  enough  to  justify  specialization,  useful  enough  to 
keep  a  man  from  exemplifying  the  popular  saying  that  one 
can  be  a  fool  in  a  dozen  different  languages,  or  many-sided 
enough  though  derived  from  the  dozen,  to  make  him  versatile, 
even  in  the  sense  of  being  all  kinds  of  a  fool.  That  some 
language — almost  invariably  a  modern  one — ^is  directly 
useful  in  the  majority  of  vocations,  and  that  most  languages, 
especially  the  classical,  are  desirable  from  the  standpoint  of 
avocation,  is  no  reason  why  college  entrance  requirements 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  277 

should  insist  upon  a  mechanical  mastery  of  two  languages 
during  a  four  year  high-school  course  at  the  expense  of  both 
more  general  apperception  through  the  vernacular  and  more 
generally  useful  phases  of  direct  preparation.  Moreover, 
if  a  language  is  to  broaden  apperception  at  all,  it  should  be 
studied  so  thoroughly  that  it  can  be  read  with  both  ease  and 
pleasure,  and,  so  far  as  many  vocations  are  concerned  and 
some  phases  of  avocation,  if  it  is  to  be  directly  useful  at  all, 
it  must  be  unhesitatingly  and  correctly  spoken  and  readily 
written.  To  ensure  so  complete  a  mastery,  more  than  half 
the  time  is  probably  necessary  for  the  teaching  of  one 
language  than  is  usually  devoted  in  the  high  school  to  that  of 
two.  Yet  at  least  two  languages  are  necessary  in  certain 
fields  of  specialization.  To  require  no  language  for  college 
entrance  is  simple  justice  to  the  occasional  student  who  has 
no  taste  for  a  foreign  language  or  no  need  for  it  in  his  voca- 
tion. To  accept  no  more  than  one  seems  the  only  safeguard 
in  the  high  school  for  direct  preparation  and  other  phases 
of  specialization  than  language  study. 

Two  alternatives  remain — to  begin  the  study  of  one  or 
more  languages  after  college  entrance,  or  to  master  one  or 
more  below  the  high  school.  From  the  stand-  practica- 
point  of  vocational  specialization,  the  first  bility  of 
alternative  is  permissible,  and,  where  specializa-  fpecializing 
tion  comes  late,  at  times  inevitable.  Against  foreign  Un- 
it is  the  wastefulness  of  mechanical  work  in  a  guage  at  an 
period  of  development  where  the  ready  use  of  ®^^^^  ^^®' 
foreign  languages  opens  the  way  to  a  broader  scientific  and 
aesthetic  horizon.  In  favor  of  the  second  alternative  is 
the  old  physiological  argument  of  readier  vocal  adjustment 
to  foreign  language  in  childhood  combined  with  the  greater 
interest  of  children  in  the  mechanical,  the  longer  period 
available  for  the  repetition  of  essentials  and  the  formation 
of  habits,  and  the  immediate  usefulness  of  foreign  language, 
not  only  long  before  college  is  reached,  but  in  the  experience 
of  those  for  whom  college  training  is  impossible.  Two  or 
three  lessons  a  week  throughout  six  or  eight  years  of  element- 


278  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

ary  school  life,  given  at  special  centers,  as  in  the  case  of 
manual  training,  or  in  a  series  of  schools  by  special  teachers, 
as  in  the  case  of  music,  should  ensure  the  conquest  of  any 
language.  This  would  not  be  required  of  any  or  permitted 
to  those  who  needed  the  time  for  required  work,  but  that  an 
overwhelming  majority  of  elementary  school  pupils  have  the 
taste  and  ability  and  can  afford  the  time  to  specialize  in 
language  is  plainly  indicated  by  the  results  of  private  tutor- 
ing and  of  work  in  private  schools. 

Where  there  is  no  local  or  individual  reason  for  some  other 
language,  the  relatively  greater  usefulness  of  German  and 
Lancuace  French  in  a  majority  of  vocations  and  in  scientific 
chosen  research  with  their  broader  literatures,  cosmo- 

should^  politan  use,  and  the  close  contact  with  America 
Tndfvidual  ^^  ^^^  peoples  who  speak  them,  make  their 
and  national  election  most  probable,  especially  in  small  com- 
group.  munities  where  it  may  be  economically  possible 

to  have  instruction  in  only  one  language  for  an  hour  or  so 
daily  by  a  tutor  whose  main  support  results  from  other 
occupation.  Wherever  possible,  however,  individual  and 
group  interests  should  be  satisfied.  The  child  attracted 
to  Italian  through  the  terminology  of  musical  technique,  the 
pupils  interested  in  Latin  through  their  study  of  etymology 
should  have  immediate  and  continued  opportunity  for 
specialization.  Above  all,  the  amplest  opportunity  should 
be  given  the  second  generation  of  American  immigrants  to 
transform  their  contemptuous  indifference  to  the  rich  spir- 
itual inheritance  handed  down  to  them  through  the  broken 
speech  of  their  parents  and  grandparents,  into  loving 
familiarity  with  the  folklore,  the  literature,  and  song  of  their 
mother  tongue. 

9.  Even  Specialization  in  Avocation  Determined  by  the  Test  of 
Relative  Worth 

Aside  from  the  culture  and  experience  essential  to  social 
life  and  common,  at  least  in  its  many-sidedness,  to  all  classes 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  279 

of  democratic  society,  avocation  is  not  deter-  Avocation 
minable  by  the  test  of  relative  worth.  The  ^j^^  oppor- 
employment  of  the  leisure  of  individuals  should  tunity  and 
be  as  variable  as  human  nature  and  the  en-  "^^od- 
vironment  in  and  through  which  it  finds  expression.  But 
while  innate  tendencies  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  individual  interests  acquired  through  varying  ex- 
perience are  the  active  selective  agents,  it  does  not  follow 
that  formal  education  is  to  play  no  part.  If  left  to  itself, 
individuality  may  leave  its  task  undone  or  incomplete. 
The  mass  of  individuals  have  no  employment  for  solitary 
leisure,  or  lack  the  variety  of  employments  that  can  be 
adapted  to  varying  opportunity  and  varying  moods.  Their 
individuality  either  confines  itself  to  the  selection  of  a  form 
of  social  enjoyment  which  they  must  find  others  to  share,  or 
is  dependent  upon  one  or  two  forms  of  active  expression  of 
which  they  tire  or  for  which  opportunity  is  often  lacking. 
It  therefore  becomes  the  part  of  education  to  make  sure 
that  innate  capacity  and  acquired  interests  determine  forms 
of  association  at  least  varied  enough  to  adapt  themselves 
to  periods  of  both  activity  and  repose,  and  to  be  in  part  in- 
dependent of  changing  season  and  locality.  In  the  great 
cities  public  amusements  provided  by  professional  perform- 
ers are  so  frequent  and  so  varied  that  the  temptation  is  to 
express  individuality  in  merely  choosing  the  particular  way 
in  which  one  will  be  a  looker  on.  In  solitude,  in  a  simpler 
environment  or  out  of  funds,  the  looker  on,  deprived  of  his 
usual  panorama,  will  suffer  in  idleness  or  find  some  form  of 
mischief  for  idle  hands  to  do. 

To  train  each  individual  to  an  adequate  variety  of  avoca- 
tions suited  to  every  state  of  mind  and  adapted  to  the 
commoner    localities    and    to    every    sort    of 
season  and  weather,  is  merely  to  extend  to  the  I^^dividual 

lIlL6f6Si 

whole  of   education  the  Froebelian  principle  of  determines 

counterbalancing  possible  evil  by  the  develop-  the  field  for 

ment  of  corresponding  good.     One  should  not  H^^^^  ^*" 

only  be  taught  to  enjoy  good  reading,  to  discuss  avocation. 


28o  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

and  to  reflect,  but,  if  not  to  play  well  some  musical  instru- 
ment, to  paint  artistically,  to  carve  skilfully,  or  to  tinker 
usefully,  at  least  to  whittle  or  to  scribble  or  to  play  solitaire. 
From  a  great  variety  of  restful  things,  individuality  must 
select  some  that  will  seem  good  when  one  is  tired  and  alone. 
This  is  the  moral  side  of  fancy  work  and  smoking.  The 
first  step  toward  checking  the  one  or  eliminating  the  other 
must  be  a  greater  variety  of  restful  occupations.  Gardening, 
observation  of  the  birds  and  animals  of  the  woods,  collec- 
tions from  plants  and  shells  to  fossils  and  Indian  arrow 
heads,  scientific  experimentation,  photography,  translation, 
wood-chopping,  fishing — it  does  not  matter  what,  if  avoca- 
tion is  sufficiently  varied  to  meet  at  all  times  and  in  all  places 
the  need  for  solitary  enjoyment. 

Even  here  the  test  of  relative  worth  selects  in  each  avoca- 
tion the  essential  relationships  whose  mastery  will  be  most 
Within  the  useful,  and  where  natural  tendency  or  acquired 
field  many-  interest  fails  to  suggest  the  avocations  which 
sidedness  ^jj  ^^  most  absorbing,  determines  those  to  be 
rence  also  pursued  for  their  many-sidedness,  frequency  of 
are  deter-  recurrence,  and  emotional  appeal.  In  England 
mining.  ^j^^  movement  for  introducing  "fad''  work  into 
the  school  is  directly  designed  to  further  avocation.  In 
America  as  yet  avocation  has  mainly  been  used  to  draw 
pupils  together  into  congenial  groups  with  a  view  to  social- 
izing the  school. 

ID.  Only  the  Test  for  Relative  Worth  Can  Determine  the  Rela- 
tive Fart  to  Be  Flayed  by  General  Education  and  Special- 
ization 

Only  the  general  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth 
and  the  scientific  determination  of  the  factors  most  effective 
in  pedagogical  method  will  determine  the  relative  part  that 
will  be  played  by  general  education  and  specialization  in  the 
various  stages  of  educational  development.  One  thing 
only  is  sure,  specialization  will  not  only  play  an  increasingly 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  281 

important  part,  but  must  parallel  general  education  in  each, 
that  is,  it  must  receive  from  the  beginning  some  share  of  the 
time  that  can  be  economically  devoted  to  memorizing,  except 
in  the  case  of  individuals  who  must  use  all  their  memorizing 
to  make  certain  the  essentials  of  direct  preparation  in  general. 
With  them  specialization  will  confine  itself  to  the  varying 
apperception  of  the  optional  material  which,  since  it  cannot  be 
memorized  in  definite  relationships,  potently  contributes  to 
the  individuality  of  all. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  CONTINUITY  NECESSARY  TO  A  CUMULATIVE  AND  DOMI- 
NATING SYSTEM  TO  BE  ENSURED  PRIMARILY  THROUGH 
DIRECT  PREPARATION  AND,  SECONDARILY,  THROUGH 
SPECIALIZATION 

The  present  reaction  from  the  extreme  of  the  elective 

system  and  the  new  education  is  largely  due  to  a  growing 

Continuity     realization  that  the  most  indispensable  condition 

essential  to  to  discipline  is  continuity.     Habit  in  the  sense 

both  the        q£   discipline   must   be  permanent,  and   in   the 
permanence  f^  ,      ,.     .   ,f  ,         ,        . 

and  domi-      sense  01  general   disciplme  must  be  dommant. 

nance  of        To  both  permanence  and  dominance  continuity  is 
iscip  ine.      essential.     The  consequent  assumption,  however, 
that  the  only  means  to  it  is  academic  or  vocational  speciali- 
zation will  bear  some  analysis. 

I.  From  the  Standpoint  of  Continuity  Habit  Must  Be  Consid- 
ered in  at  Least  Four  Degrees  of  Complexity 
From  the  standpoint  of  continuity,  habit  must  be  consid- 
ered in   at  least  four  degrees   of    complexity:    First,   the 

simplest  form  of  specific  discipline  is  the  simple 
ful,  simple  habit,  distinct  from  any  system,  such  as  the  habit 
habit,  con-  of  putting  on  overshoes  in  rainy  weather,  the 
tinuity  is  habit  of  Completing  a  particular  sort  of  task 
through  ex-  when  once  it  has  been  begun,  the  habit  which 
perience  or  associates  two  and  two  with  four.  Here  unbro- 
impres^sion     ^^^  sequences  and  continuity  are  the  essential 

conditions.  That  is,  not  only  must  the  conse- 
quences follow  every  time  the  stimulus  is  identified,  but  the 
stimulus  must  continually  recur  in  individual  experience. 
In  the  case  of  the  most  useful  habits,  whether  their  usefulness 
springs  from  many-sidedness  or  recurrence  in  a  single  rela- 

282 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  283 

tionship,  continuity  is  assured  by  experience  itself.  The 
function  of  education  is  merely  to  ensure  their  initial  mastery. 
Continuity  must  be  assured  not  so  much  for  habit  as  for  the 
cumulative  impression  which  emotionalizes  its  stimulus. 
Where  usefulness  of  a  simple  habit  springs  from  high  degree 
of  sensational  or  emotional  appeal  and  the  continuity  due  to 
many-sidedness  and  recurrence  is  lacking,  cumulative  im- 
pression is  the  sole  condition  to  general  application.  With 
many-sidedness  and  recurrence  present,  cumulative  impres- 
sion is  essential  to  specific  discipline  in  the  sense  of  simple 
habit  only  when  it  must  overcome  a  habit  with  which  it 
conflicts.  Here  continuity  must  be  re-enforced  by  the  cumu- 
lative force  of  feelings  and  ideals,  which  on  the  emotional 
side  we  call  conscience  and  on  the  motor  or  positive  side,  will. 

Second,  in  relative  simplicity  of  habit  considered  from  the 
standpoint  of  continuity  are  the  particular  sequences  or 
complexes  of  habits  which  constitute  specific  discipline  in 
the  sense  of  system.  Here  continuity  of  instruction  is  an 
indispensable  condition  to  the  gradation  without  which  even 
initial  mastery  is  impossible.  A  habit  which  is  a  condition 
to  further  system  must  become  automatic  before  any  attempt 
is  made  to  master  the  next  sequence  of  which  it  is  a  compo- 
nent part.  It  is  not  impossible  that  the  operation  of  this 
law  explains  such  periods  of  arrested  development  as  Swift 
describes  in  his  "Mind  in  the  Making. "^^  Whether  the  com- 
plex process  is  a  motor  one  or  purely  mental,  further  advance- 
ment becomes  again  and  again  impossible  until  all  sequences 
and  habits  which  have  accumulated  are  reduced  to  mechan- 
ical operation. 

For  continuity  in  this  sense,  either  academic  or  vocational 
speciahzation  ensures  the  time,  but  not  necessarily  the  grada- 
tion.    Both   must   be   supplemented   by   peda-   Specializa- 
gogical  method.    And   even  where  pedagogical  tio^i  e^^sures 
method   is   ensured,    the   continuity   of   purely  bu^on^y^' 
academic  specialization  is  limited  to  the  period  pedagogical 

of    formal  instruction  allotted  to  it  unless  it   ^®?^°^ 

.V  ensures 

contmues  as  a  form  of  vocation  or  avocation,   gradation. 


284  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

That  is,  academic  specialization  furthers  the  continuity 
essential  to  permanency  of  discipline  only  when  it  is  a 
part  of  direct  preparation  for  life. 

While  academic  speciaKzation  finds  its  limit  at  the  close 
of  the  formal  school  course,  vocational  specialization  finds 
Academic  ^^^  ^^  ^^^  beginning.  Too  early  vocational 
specializa-  specialization  may  defeat  its  own  end  not  merely 
tion  should  through  the  shifting  interests  and  abilities  of 
vocational,  developing  individuaHty,  but  because  of  variable 
economic  conditions  which  may  make  it  impos- 
sible for  an  individual  to  continue  in  a  specialization  al- 
ready begun.  From  the  standpoint  of  speciaKzation  per- 
manency is  more  likely  to  be  ensured  where  it  begins  with 
academic  specialization  that  may  lead  the  way  to  many 
vocations,  supplemented  by  all  generally  and  directly  useful 
subject  matter  that  the  specialty  affords.  It  should,  on  the 
one  side,  find  its  continuity  in  vocational  specialization,  and 
on  the  other  in  academic  relationships  useful  to  life  in  general. 
It  is  direct  preparation  for  life,  of  which  vocational  prepara- 
tion is  but  a  part,  that  selecting  each  division  and  sub- 
division which  is  to  be  memorized  on  account  of  its  many- 
sidedness  and  frequency  of  recurrence  in  every-day  life, 
ensures  a  permanency  more  enduring  than  that  of  mere  spe- 
cialization in  school. 

Third,  in  the  scale  of  complex  habit  considered  from  the 
standpoint  of  continuity  is  the  system  of  habits  and  fixed 
.  conditions  favorable  to  general  discipline.    The 

of  system  Carrying  over  of  a  habit  from  the  field  in  which 
favorable  it  is  first  developed  to  other  fields  in  which  it  is 
mscbirne^  useful  is  the  first  step  toward  continuity  as  the 
through  result  of  dominance  as  distinct  from  mere  per- 
direct  ^  manence.  Here  indirect  furtherance  through 
prepara  on.  ^^^^  remembrance  and  varying  apperception, 
multiplication  of  vocabulary,  and  many-sidedness  of  knowl- 
edge— the  very  opposite  of  specialization — are  as  essential  as 
habit  and  system  themselves.  Moreover,  as  already  pointed 
out,  general  discipline  has  been  too  often  neglected  within  the 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  285 

specialty  itself  for  a  mere  extension  of  the  time  devoted  to  a 
particular  branch  to  ensure  it.  To  be  sure,  pedagogical  train- 
ing of  the  specialist  may  make  it  certain  within  the  specialty. 
In  direct  preparation,  however,  general  discipline  is  so  indis- 
pensable that  pedagogical  training  becomes  compulsory. 
There  can  be  not  only  no  permanency  and  no  dominance,  but 
no  system  in  the  absence  of  pedagogically  trained  teachers 
and  pedagogically  determined  experience,  text-books,  and 
courses  of  study. 

Fourth,  and  last  in  the  scale  of  habit  considered  with  a 
view  to  continuity,  is  the  complete  interrelation  and  subordi- 
nation of  all  relationships  sufficiently  useful  to  be  memorized, 
into  the  great  system  of  direct  furtherance  determined  by 
their  relative  usefulness.  This  is  so  obviously  beyond  the 
field  of  mere  academic  specialization,  and  so  completely  in- 
clusive of  specialization  which  becomes  permanent  as  either 
vocation  or  avocation,  that  the  futility  of  specialization  alone 
needs  no  demonstration.  Here  is  the  true  continuity  not  only 
of  permanence  assured  through  continually  recurring  habits 
and  systems,  but  of  dominance  through  assured  cumulative 
subordination  and  concentration.  Discussion  of  the  pro- 
posed reform  of  discipline  in  the  light  of  this  analysis  should 
lead  to  more  valid  conclusions  than  mere  reaction  toward  the 
practices  for  which  the  exploded  theory  of  "mental  faculties" 
and  "formal  discipline"  is  responsible. 

2.    The  Impracticability  of   Vocational  Specialization  as  a 
Means  to  Continuity 

When  Dr.  Dewey  called  attention  to  the  absence  in  children 
of  the  "combined  motivation"  due  in  the  adult  to  vocation 
which  "prescribes  the  chief  features  of  the  acts  to  be  per- 
formed, and  secures,  somewhat  automatically  as  it  were, 
appropriate  and  related  modes  of  thinking, "^^  he  possibly 
gives  the  clue  to  Dr.  Judd  which  leads  him  to  suggest  that 
in  high  school  and  college  continuity  can  be  best  attained 
through  early  and  persistent  vocational  specialization. ^^^ 


286  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

If  practicable,  this  solution  of  the  difficulty  would  be  but 
partial,  associating  as  it  does  the  persistence  of  discipline 
with  the  least  social  phase  of  individual  development.  But 
it  is  only  occasionally  practicable.  Vocation  is  economically 
rather  than  subjectively  determined.  Subjective  capacities 
and  tendencies  exclude  occupations  for  which  the  individual 
is  unfit  more  frequently  than  they  determine  the  one  for  which 
he  is  pre-eminently  qualified.  While  the  absence  of  strong 
native  retentiveness,  incapacity  to  make  fine  discrimination 
in  sound  or  vision,  and  lack  of  motor  dexterity  at  once  make 
particular  vocations  impossible,  the  presence  of  each  capacity 
tends  to  open  up  the  way  to  a  variety  of  callings.  Indeed, 
most  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  qualifications  desirable 
in  any  one  are  necessary  to  the  highest  success  of  all.  That  is, 
if  a  man  is  not  naturally  unfitted  for  success  in  a  particular 
calling,  the  capacities  and  the  habits  that  will  make  him  ex- 
ceptionally successful  in  it  are  with  few  exceptions  identical 
with  those  that  would  have  made  him  equally  successful  in 
others.  The  square  peg  must  not  get  in  a  round  hole,  but 
there  are  usually  plenty  of  square  ones. 

3.  More  Likelihood  of  Continuity  Through  Academic  Special- 
ization  Strengthened  by  Varying  Vocational  Motive 

Academic  specialization,  which  is  primarily  subjective, 
and  may  be  partially  or  temporarily  vocational,  furnishes  a 
stronger  likelihood  of  continuity.  Special  ability  in  mathe- 
matics, natural  science,  the  acquisition  of  foreign  languages, 
composition,  or  drawing  will  show  itself  earlier  than  fitness 
for  a  particular  occupation,  and  has  the  added  advantage  of 
leading  to  alternative  or  various  occupations,  rather  than  to 
a  single  one  for  which  opportunity  may  not  offer  or  in  which 
all  interest  may  sooner  or  later  be  lost.  Sole  dependence  for 
continuity  can  be  placed  on  neither  academic  nor  voca- 
tional interest.  Witness  the  victim  of  a  free  elective  system 
and  the  Jack  of  all  trades. 

At  each  stage  of  education  a  limited  amount  of  academic 
specialization  should  be  compelled,  strengthened  by  voca- 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  287 

tional  motive  wherever  possible.  Academic  specialization 
should  be  taken  more  seriously  and  determined  upon  after 
earnest  and  intelligent  conference  between  pupils  or  students, 
parents,  and  teachers,  in  so  far  as  possible  in  the  light  of 
innate  tendencies  likely  to  form  the  basis  for  acquired 
interests.  If  interest  does  not  become  stronger  or  inability 
is  shown,  the  specialty  should  be  changed,  even  if  the  break 
should  come  on  college  entrance.  To  continue  to  compel  a 
mistaken  specialization  for  the  sake  of  continuity  would  not 
only  be  unjust  to  the  individual,  but  would  ultimately  defeat 
its  own  purpose. 

In  itself,  vocational  motive  in  the  sense  of  a  love  of  some 
one  vocation  would  in  the  case  of  most  individuals  be  the 
least  continuing  of  all.    The  boy  longs  one  year  changing 
to  become  a  missionary  or  a  dentist,  and  the  next  vocational 
is  training  to  be  a  drum-major,  a  soldier,  or  an   motive 
aeronaut.     He  is  quite  as  capable  of  being  a  mer-   tinuing  than 
chant  as  a  freshman,  a  journalist  as  a  sophomore,   vocational 
to  finally  emerge  from  college  in  doubt  as  to   speciahza- 
whether  he  should  be  a  lawyer  or  a  mining  engi- 
neer.    But  while  the  particular  vocational  aim  varies,  the 
incentive  of  vocation  is  and  ought  to  be  one  of  the  most 
continuing  of  motives.     As  such,  in  all  of  its  shifts  and 
changes,  it  should  be  encouraged  and  so  far  as  possible  made 
to  furnish    additional  interest  in  an  academic  continuity 
which  usually  must  be  otherwise  determined.     Instead  of 
being  scoffed  at  as  illiberal  during  the  college  course,  it  should 
be  prayed  for.     And  wherever  there  is  either  an  exceptionally 
persistent  longing  for  some  particular  vocation  not  forbidden 
by  native  incapacity  or  economic  conditions,  or  the  necessity 
for  an  early  selection  of  vocation  as  the  result  of  economic 
compulsion,  there  should  be  adequate  provision  for  vocational 
training.     Therefore,   trade   schools,   continuation   schools, 
vocational  high  schools,  professional  schools  open  to  those 
who  are  not  college  graduates,  and,  above  all,  ample  opportun- 
ity for  vocational  courses  within  academic  high  school  and 
college.    Here,  however,  is  the  limit  to  vocational  specializa- 


288  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

tion  as  a  means  to  continuity,  and  so  limited  it  cannot  fully 
perform  the  function  of  continuity. 

A  truly  pedagogical  continuity  is  but  a  means  to  the  perfect 
mastery  of  simple  habits  and  sequences,  which  in  turn  become 
a  part  of  increasingly  complex  but  equally  certain  habits 
and  sequences.  It  is  reorganizing,  correlative,  cumulative, 
and  brings  about  a  concentration  more  useful  and  more 
permanent  than  that  possible  mthin  some  one  branch  of 
human  knowledge.  Academic  continuity  can  at  best  ensure 
adequate  knowledge  and  discipline  within  the  branch  itself 
and  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  branch.  Hence,  the  inade- 
quacy, relative  uselessness,  and  mutual  contradictoriness 
of  falsely  Herbartian  schemes  of  correlation  that 
vocsLti^ir  ^^^^^  ^^^^  geography,  language,  nature  study, 
speciaiiza-  and  even  number  the  basis  for  reorganization 
tion  no  true  and  concentration.  Vocation  is  a  truer  basis, 
continuity.  ^^^  ^^^7  ^^  ^  means  to  the  comprehension  of 
vocational  life  in  general.  Even  in  this  sense 
it  is  as  partial  as  in  the  other  it  is  impracticable.  To  ensure 
continuity  through  vocational  specialization  alone  would,  on 
the  one  hand,  make  the  college  course  utilitarian  in  the  narrow 
and  polemic  sense,  and,  on  the  other,  increase  the  difficulty 
which  the  vocational  school  already,  but  so  unnecessarily, 
has  in  interesting  its  students  in  anything  not  directly  voca- 
tional. 

So  far  as  permanent  and  dominating  interests  are  acquired 
through  instruction,  in  distinction  from  or  in  addition  to  those 
due  to  innate  capacities,  they  are  dependent  upon  continuity 
Continuity  ^^  experience  or  instruction.  In  the  case  of  the 
made  cer-  majority  of  individuals,  continuity  in  experience 
tain  only  cannot  be  counted  upon  to  ensure  the  perma- 
preparation  i^^nce  and  dominance  of  the  impressions,  knowl- 
for  all  edge,  ideals,  and  habits  essential  to  direct  and 

phases  of       indirect  preparation  for   life.      The  reorganiza- 
tion and  accumulation  which  continuity  makes 
certain  must  be  brought  about  with  a  view  to  preparation  not 
for  one,  but  for  every  phase  of  life.     From  the  standpoint  of 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  289 

specific  discipline,  and  such  general  discipline  as  is  ensured 
for  it,  continuity  in  some  special  subject — ^it  matters  not 
what — is  necessary,  but  cannot  be  compelled  where  it  proves 
itself  to  be  counter  to  natural  aptitude  or  economically  un- 
necessary. Even  here  the  subject  matter  must  be  related 
to  life,  or  reorganization  and  systematic  accumulation  will  be 
impossible.  For  any  one  basis  of  academically  or  vocation- 
ally specific  continuity  another  can  be  substituted  and  often 
must  be  substituted. 

4.  Continuity  Practicable  and  at  the  Same  Time  Most  Useful 
Only  Through  the  Progressive  and  Cumulative  Organizes 
tion  of  the  Material  Most  Directly  Useful  to  All 
Continuity  for  habit  in  each  of  its  four  stages  of  complexity 
can  be  compelled  only  with  subject  matter  which  is  essential 
to  the  mass  of  individuals  both  as  individuals  and  as  collect- 
ively constituting  community  and  state.  Here  alone  the 
individual  cannot  and  must  not  choose.  Here  education,  if 
necessary,  must  persist  in  the  face  of  natural  tendency, 
culture  epochs,  and  varying  interests  and  desires.  Here 
common  sequences  and  common  habits  are  not  only  essential 
to  direct  preparation  for  life  in  its  necessary  phases,  but  to 
the  most  certain  and  useful  general  discipline,  a  democratic 
culture  and  vocational  specialization  itself.  Here  continu- 
ity must  persist  not  through  some  formal  course  of  instruc- 
tion, but  through  life — not  for  the  sake  of  the  specific  disci- 
pline pecuHar  to  some  special  branch  of  learning,  but  because 
reorganization,  accumulation,  concentration,  and  certainty 
of  specific  and  general  application  are  necessary  to  religion, 
morality,  health,  industrial  efficiency,  social  service,  good 
citizenship,  right  social  intercourse,  and  even  the  individual 
enjoyment  of  leisure.  Even  when  the  period  is  reached 
when  vocational  specialization  becomes  the  most  immediate 
aim,  and  some  vocational  course  or  institution  adds  to  reor- 
ganization and  accumulation  from  the  standpoint  of  common 
and  certain  preparation  for  every  phase  of  life,  reorganization 
and  accumulation  from  the  standpoint  of  the  one,  the  essen- 

19 


290  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

tial  continuity  directly  and  indirectly  useful  from  the  stand- 
point of  every  phase,  must  not  only  persist  but  dominate,  and 
such  time  as  is  necessary  to  its  persistence  and  domination 
through  useful  selection,  organization,  and  method  should 
be  determined  by  science  and  compelled  by  the  state.  Prob- 
ably no  sacrifice  of  vocational  efficiency  will  be  necessary, 
but  if  it  should,  "social  efficiency,"  in  the  guise  of  material 
"achievement,"  has  not  yet  become  the  supreme  aim  of 
modern  life.^^^ 

Finally,  it  has  already  been  pointed  out  that  in  the  case 
of  the  majority  of  individuals  discipline  and  culture  to  be 
continuing  must  be  related  to  life.  If  this  be  necessary 
for  the  mere  retention  of  some  specific  discipline  or  culture, 
how  indispensable  it  is  in  the  case  of  discipline  and  culture 
which  are  not  only  to  be  retained,  but  to  become  a  dominating 
force.  With  a  view  to  continuity  in  this  broader  sense,  rela- 
tionship of  subject  matter  to  life  is  necessary  both  in  order 
that  the  subject  matter  of  the  specialized  subject  can  be  re- 
organized from  the  standpoint  of  what  is  essential  to  life, 
and  in  order  that  the  every-day  material  of  life  shall  be 
reorganized  from  the  standpoint  of  the  specialty. 

5.  Early  Opportunity  for  Specialization  Should  Re-enforce  the 
Continuity  Based  on  Direct  Preparation  for  Life  in  Gen- 
eral with   That    Based  Upon   Subjective  or   Vocational 
Specialization 
While  specialization,  until  some  phase  of  it  takes  on  voca- 
tional form,  cannot  be  safely  depended  upon  for  continuity, 
just  as  the  selected  essential  content  required  of  all  parallels 
it  to  the  end,  so  should  it  parallel  the  common  course  of  study 
from  the  beginning. 

If  a  foreign  language,  the  higher  mathematics,  or  a  particu- 
lar natural  science  as  a  whole  is  not  to  be  required  of  all  at 
any  point  in  the  educational  process,  opportunity  for  special- 
ization in  one  or  more  of  them  should  be  afforded  as  early  as 
special  aptitudes  and  individual  interests  can  be  detected 
and  encouraged. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  291 

As  scientific  selection  of  most  essential  content  and  deter- 
mination of  most  effective  method  fix  and  lessen  the  time  nec- 
essary to  mastery  of  the  subject  matter  required  in  common 
of  all,  ample  time  will  probably  remain  for  the  continuous 
study  of  some  special  subject  or  subjects  not  so  required. 
At  present,  individual  instruction  in  the  elementary  school 
has  for  its  aim  such  adaptation  of  method  to  the  individual  as 
to  compel  mastery  of  an  arbitrary  course  var3dng  greatly 
with  locality  and  the  judgment  of  individual  teachers  and 
text-book  makers,  but  not  permitted  to  vary  within  a  particu- 
lar school  with  the  varying  aptitudes  of  the  pupils.  The 
limitation  of  this  phase  of  individual  instruction  to  the  essen- 
tial content  will  make  possible  individuality  in  the  selection 
of  some  part  of  the  course  of  study.  Here  continuity  should 
be  encouraged,  but  cannot  be  compelled  as  interests  change 
and  aptitudes  lessen  or  fail.  For  the  mental  traits  conspicu- 
ous in  a  particular  individual  are  often  different  in  various 
periods  of  development,  and  the  mental  traits  required  for  a 
particular  branch  of  study  vary,  both  in  the  parts  composing 
each  stage  of  advancement  and  in  the  successive  stages  of 
advancement  themselves. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  throughout  the 
entire  course  of  education  individuality  shows  itself  in  the 
varying  relationships  in  which  various  individuals  Continuities 
apperceive  subject  matter  which  is  not  certainly  of  individual 
and  permanently  memorized  in  definite  and  domina?e^ 
specific  relationships.  Whatever  may  be  true  academic 
of  instruction,  there  is  continuity  in  individual  education, 
experience.  More  or  less  complex  and  permanent  groups  of 
ideas  and  activities  accumulate  and  develop  until  they  de- 
termine character  and  dominate  life.  They  include  the 
experience  that  results  from  formal  instruction  in  so  far  as 
it  is  related  to  life,  always  modifying  and  determining  it  and, 
in  varying  degrees  and  fashion  with  each  individual,  being 
modified  and  determined  by  it.  Most  schemes  of  education 
have  had  sufficient  continuity  in  the  narrower  sense  to  in- 
clude new  factors  in  it.     Each  branch  of  study,  even  though 


292  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

imperfectly  mastered  and  retained,  becomes  an  apperceiving 
center.  Information  is  at  least  generally  classified  and  in 
part  interpreted  in  an  academic  way.  Some  fundamental 
sequences  and  habits  are  incidentally  carried  over  to  life. 
While  most  is  forgotten,  at  least  impression  remains  and 
possibly  a  culture  that  too  often  holds  itself  afar. 

In  the  case  of  individuals  for  whom  academic  specializa- 
tion brings  continuity  or  for  whom  vocational  specialization 
is  possible  through  instruction  as  well  as  through  life,  some 
specific  phase  of  scholarship  may  become  a  dominating  force. 
In  the  few,  the  love  of  liberal  knowledge  may  be  strong 
enough  to  isolate  them  from  life  as  unproductive  pedants,  or 
inspire  them  to  the  high  vocation  of  original  research  for  the 
sake  of  knowledge.  For  the  majority,  however,  the  continu- 
ities of  life  make  the  educational  system  that  least  recognizes 
individuality,  individual  through  the  very  absence  of  common 
and  counterbalancing  continuities  of  its  own. 

6.  The  Specific  Discipline  Involved  in  Direct  Preparation  for 
Life  Necessary  Not  Only  to  Make  Education  Certainly 
Useful,  but  to  Increase  the  Probability  of  Usefulness  of 
Every  Form  of  Indirect  Instruction 
The  truly  formal  and  educational  system  which  the  science 
of  pedagogy  alone  can  determine  and  make  universal  must 
dominate  the  continuities  of  incidental  experience.     Its  aim 
is  not  independent  and  continuing  self-activity,  but  inde- 
pendent and  continuing  self-activity  that  is  useful.     Instruc- 
tion  furthers   it   both   directly   and   indirectly — indirectly 
through  impression,  remembrance,  apperception,  and  general 
discipline,  whose  relationships  vary  with  individuals  and  may 
or  may  not  further  the  aim,  and  directly  through  a  specific 
discipline  which  makes  definite  and  certain  the  relationships 
potentially  most  useful,  including  the  specific  impression, 
remembrance,  and  apperception  which  tend  to  make  the  use- 
fulness of  direct  instruction  most  probable.     If  impressions 
are  to  acciunulate  so  as  to  most  potentially  re-enforce  useful 
ideas  and  habits,  they  must  have  fixed  emotional  centers. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  293 

If  partial  remembrances  are  to  form  the  basis  for  useful  ap- 
perception, the  relationships  which  constitute  them  must  be 
predetermined.  If  habits  are  to  have  the  greatest  likeli- 
hood of  application  wherein  they  may  be  useful,  the  relation- 
ships necessary  to  the  identification  of  these  stimuli  must 
be  mechanically  associated  with  them.  If  all  ideas  and  ac- 
tivities held  in  mind  by  incidental  and  individual  appercep- 
tion and  retention  are  to  be  made  the  means  to  a  many-sided- 
ness which  furthers  direct  preparation  for  Hfe,  adds  to  a 
democratic  culture,  and  constitutes  the  chief  condition  to 
useful  general  discipline,  they  must  be  associated  with  the 
basal  contiguities  which  make  useful  inference  and  identifica- 
tion most  probable. 

All  the  relationships  just  named  are  as  essential  to  general 
culture  and  discipline  as  to  the  direct  preparation  for  life 
of  which  they  form  a  part.  To  them  must  be  added  the  rela- 
tionships which  specifically  further  in  the  most  many-sided 
way  and  with  most  frequent  recurrence  each  essential  phase 
of  life  in  general,  and  of  the  branches  or  vocations  which  con- 
stitute specialization.  Those  most  essential  to  life  in  general 
are  of  primary  importance,  and  with  those  essential  both  to 
direct  and  indirect  instruction  must  be  ensured,  if  necessary, 
at  the  sacrifice  of  those  essential  to  specialized  vocation  or 
avocation.  For  even  if  "social  efficiency"  is  adequately 
served,  as  occasionally  it  is,  by  a  vocational  skill  or  a  fulness 
of  avocation  which  involves  exceptional  service  to  the  com- 
munity at  the  expense  of  citizenship,  altruism,  health,  or  even 
morality,  the  individual  suffers  irreparable  wrong,  and  society, 
after  all  but  an  aggregate  of  individuals,  loses  in  the  many 
fields  of  service  what  it  gains  in  the  one.  If  in  the  present 
state  of  civilization  life  must  still  be  sacrificed  to  citizenship 
and  material  prosperity,  health  to  industry,  and  citizenship  to 
trade  or  social  intercourse,  it  need  not  and  must  not  be  so  in 
school. 

Fortunately,  the  fewness  of  the  relationships  thus  essenti- 
ally useful  to  all  will,  in  the  case  of  the  majority  of  individuals, 
leave  ample  time  for  the  memorizing  and  retention  of  those 


294  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

essentially  useful  to  academic  or  vocational  specialization. 
The  time  necessary  to  memorizing  this  common  content, 
however,  greatly  varies  with  native  acquisitiveness  and  re- 
tentiveness,  while  the  limited  time  daily  effective  for  memori- 
zing and  retention  seems  to  remain  fairly  constant.  Although 
it  is  likely  that  the  greater  time  spent  by  some  individuals 
in  initial  memorizing  may  be  balanced  by  less  time  required 
for  review,  there  is  little  doubt  that  in  exceptional  cases  there 
will  be  little  opportunity  for  specialization.  In  the  case  of 
the  great  mass  of  individuals,  however,  general  education  and 
specialization  will  parallel  each  other,  and  in  each  the  funda- 
mental problem  is  the  determination  of  the  relationships 
which  must  be  memorized  and  retained.  In  each  they  must 
become  mechanical  in  their  operation.  In  each,  simple 
sequences  and  habits  must  be  transformed  into  those  that 
are  increasingly  complex.  Impressions  will  re-enforce  them. 
Partial  concepts  will  form  apperceiving  centers  for  them, 
until  through  their  many-sided  and  continually  recurring 
relationships,  supplemented  by  the  habits  necessary  to  their 
general  application,  they  are  carried  over  with  constantly 
increasing  frequency  into  the  various  fields  in  which  they  are 
useful. 

7.  The  "0/c^"  Edtication  and  the  "  New^^  Complementary  Parts 
of  the  Ideal  Whole 
What  general  discipline  demands  is  not  abstract  relation- 
ships, but  relationships  usefully  general;  not  concentration 
upon  one  or  two  branches,  but  concentration  upon  a  limited 
number  of  relationships;  not  remoteness  from  every-day  life, 
but  many-sidedness  and  continuity  of  relationship  with 
what  is  most  essential  to  life;  not  continuity  through  special- 
ization alone,  but  through  the  domination  and  reorganiza- 
tion of  individually  apperceived  experience,  primarily  and 
permanently  by  the  common  content  most  directly  useful  to 
all,  and  less  persistently  by  the  frequently  changing  voca- 
tional or  academic  specialty  most  directly  useful  to  each 
individual.     The  mechanics  of  learning  are  not  confined  to 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  295 

alphabets,  multiplication  tables,  theorems  and  vocabularies, 
but  include  all  specific  relationships  that  a  fully  educated 
man  must  remember  by  and  think  with.  Herbartian  apper- 
ception and  interest  are  not  a  substitute  for  mechanical 
repetition,  but  a  necessary  complement  to  it.  The  first  step 
toward  certainty  of  usefulness  for  ideas  and  activities, 
whether  specific  or  general,  is  unvarying  memorizing,  accu- 
mulation, organization,  and  review  of  a  few  essential  rela- 
tionships, and  the  second,  varying  apperception  of  each  idea 
and  activity  in  a  thousand  and  one  different  relationships, 
including  and  emphasizing  those  which  associate  it,  even 
though  temporarily,  with  the  essential  content.  It  is  in  this 
sense  that  the  old  education,  with  its  memory  drill,  and  the 
new,  with  its  apperception  and  interest,  are  but  complement- 
ary parts  of  the  ideal  whole. 

The  maximum  time  available  for  memorizing  and  reten- 
tion, whether  expended  wholly  in  general  education  with  the 
few  or  in  general  education  and  specialization  with  the  many, 
is  determined  by  physiological  and  psychological  conditions. 
The  minimum  time — ^probably  well  within  this  maximum,  but 
necessarily  within  it — ^is  determined  by  the  number  and  com- 
plexity of  the  relationships  so  essential  that  they  must  be 
permanently  retained. 

Over  and  above  this  maximum  and  minimum  is  a  rela- 
tively greater  length  of  time  that  is  not  effective  for  memor- 
izing   and    retention.     Here    apperception    and  individual 
interest  have  free  play.     Here  individuality  re-   appercep- 

tains  and  interprets.     By  far  the  greater  portion  tjon^ustbe 

r  xT_  r     ^     1  .  .         r   .  1  . .        1    dominated 

ot  the  course  of  study  consists  of  the  optional  by  certainly 

material  which  may  or  may  not  be  remembered,   useful 

and  which,  if  retained  at  all,  will  be  retained  in   ®y^*®°^- 

relationships  varying  with  individuals  and  determined  by  the 

mental  content  which  happens  to  be  dominant.    It  is  here  that 

the  Herbartian  five  formal  steps  seek  to  ensure,  direct  and 

control  individual  apperception.     But  both  in  the  formal 

recitation  and  in  incidental  experience,  individuality  will 

dominate,  if  definite  and  specific  relationships,  supremely 


296  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

useful,  have  not  been  made  certain  and  dominating  through 
adequate  and  continuing  repetition,  accumulation,  and 
application.  All  of  the  relatively  less  useful  material  of 
education  must  be  presented  as  many-sidedly  as  possible, 
not  merely  in  relation  to  life,  but  to  them.  While  it  will  none 
the  less,  for  the  most  part,  be  retained  in  other  relationships, 
individual  and  uncontrolled,  it  is  far  more  likely,  on  account 
of  such  useful  presentation,  to  be  recalled  in  some  useful  re- 
lationship or,  however  recalled,  to  serve  through  its  temporary 
and  uncertain  many-sidedness  as  the  means  to  useful  infer- 
ence or  application.  An  idea  so  presented  may  sink  to  the 
dead  level  of  mere  information,  but  is  far  more  likely  to 
serve  through  the  many-sidedness  thus  made  possible  as  a 
connecting  link  between  the  habits  and  sequences  formed 
through  specific  discipline,  and  the  fields  of  knowledge  and 
experience  in  which  they  can  be  most  usefully  applied,  than 
if  it  is  presented  in  its  academic  relationships  alone,  or  even 
in  a  many-sidedness  not  specifically  useful. 

8.  Continuity  and  Concentration  Through  Specialization  Must 
Supplement  Direct  Preparation  for  Life  in  General  and 
Be  Related  to  It 
The  solution,  then,  of  the  educational  problem  does  not  lie 
in  reaction — ^in  concentration  and  continuity  through  aca- 
demic and  vocational  specialization;  not  in  vocational  schools 
that  exclude  culture  and  assume  the  continuity  of  the  general 
education  that  precedes  them;  not  in  cultural  institutions 
which,  boasting  of  their  lack  of  relationship  to  life,  assume 
continuity  for  their  subject  matter  after  its  formal  study  has 
ended.  It  rather  lies  in  the  paralleling  of  general  education 
and  specialization,  and  the  relating  of  each  as  fully  as  possible 
to  life;  in  distinguishing  in  each  between  the  material  which 
is  most  useful  through  its  many-sidedness  and  recurrence  and 
that  with  useful  relationships  which  are  less  many-sided  and 
recurring;  in  the  persistent  and  mechanical  repetition  of  the 
relatively  most  useful  material,  both  of  general  education  and 
specialization,  in  the  definite  relationships  which  make  it 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  297 

most  useful;  in  the  continuity  of  instruction  and  effective 
pedagogical  method  that  will  primarily  so  organize  the  essen- 
tial material  required  in  common  of  all  as  to  make  it  the 
means  both  to  a  democratic  culture  and  the  useful  accumu- 
lation and  reorganization  of  all  other  experience,  and,  second- 
arily, so  reorganize  the  essential  material  of  specialization  as 
to  make  it  the  means  to  a  specialized  culture  and  to  the 
useful  accumulation  and  reorganization  of  all  experience 
useful  within  its  peculiar  field;  in  ensuring  the  conditions 
necessary  to  as  general  discipline  as  is  possible  and  useful;  in 
so  relating  the  material  relatively  less  useful  for  both  common 
education  and  specialization  to  that  which  is  relatively  most 
useful  in  each,  as  to  make  many-sidedness  the  connecting 
link  between  individual  experience  and  discipline. 

To  such  a  solution  of  the  problem  the  method  peculiar  to 
a  particular  branch  of  knowledge  is  inadequate.     Scientific 
method  is  an  educational  end,  not  a  means,  and  is  dependent 
upon  pedagogical  method  for  its  effective  development.     Its 
organization  has  no  other  aim  than  that  of  the  science  of 
which  it  is  a  part.     It  may  result  in  habits  useful  enough  to  be 
generally  applied,  but  is  unable  of  itself  to  ensure  their 
general  application  in  other  fields.     Except  in  The  method 
so  far  as  its  relationships  are  themselves  directly  peculiar  to 
useful,  it  ignores  preparation  for  life.     Mastery  branch  "\" 
of  its  method,   however  unpedagogically  it  is   study  an 
brought  about,  may  result  in  an  admirable  mental   educational 
discipline  adequate  to  the  discoveries  and  inven-   ^han  a 
tions  which  advance  the  boundaries  of  human   means  to 
knowledge  and  the  noble  form  of  specialization   education, 
which  seeks  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowledge.     But  the 
usefulness  of  a  branch  of  knowledge  to  the  race  through  the 
specialist  cannot  determine  its  place  in  the  course  of  study  or 
compel    its    study  regardless  of    its   specific  relationships. 
Whether  from  the  standpoint  of  discipline  or  of  direct  prepa- 
ration for  life,  its  usefulness  to  makind  in  general,  to  special- 
ists in  other  fields,  and  even  to  those  who  specialize  in  it 
without  making  it  a  life  vocation,  is  dependent  upon  the 


298  CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY 

selection  and  organization  of  those  of  its  relationships  most 
directly  useful  in  life  in  general  or  in  the  specialty.  On  them 
are  dependent  the  continuity  of  its  habits,  the  opportunities 
for  their  application,  the  extent  to  which  it  reorganizes  every- 
day experience,  as  well  as  its  more  certain  and  specific  useful- 
ness. To  teach  a  subject  for  its  disciplinary  value  alone  is 
to  defeat  the  disciplinary  aim  itself.  Whether  taught  only 
in  part  in  order  that  all  material  not  directly  useful  to  life 
in  general  may  be  excluded,  or  taught  as  a  whole  from  the 
standpoint  of  vocational  or  academic  specialization,  the  part 
directly  useful  to  life  in  general  or  to  vocation  must  be  per- 
sistently related  to  every-day  experience.  Even  where  the 
organization  peculiar  to  the  branch  as  a  whole  and  not  so 
related  is  retained  through  formal  instruction,  it  will  remain, 
as  John  of  Salisbury  said  of  scholasticism,  "of  itself  apart," 
unapplied  and  useless  as  a  reorganizing  force.  To  the  masses, 
chess,  bridge  whist,  or  the  puzzle  column  of  a  Sunday  news- 
paper would  be  equally  remote  from  life  and  as  truly  disci- 
plinary. 

When  religion,  morals,  health,  general  industrial  efficiency, 
social  service,  and  citizenship  are  taught  through  as  specific 
relationships  and  complex  an  organization  as  mathematics 
and  the  languages,  they  will  not  only  be  as  disciplinary  in  the 
old  narrow  sense,  but  general  application  of  their  more  useful 
habits  will  be  assured,  and  life  and  character  dominated  by  the 
ideals  of  education  and  of  Christian  civilization. 

9.  The  Development  of  Education  as  a  Science  Necessary  Both 
to  Democracy  and  Christian  Civilization 
To  such  efficient  teaching  of  each  phase  of  life  required  of 
all  individuals  in  common  and  of  each  branch  of  knowledge 
as  the  subject  of  individual  specialization,  adequate  pedagog- 
ical training  is  indispensable.  It  is,  indeed,  far  more  neces- 
sary that  the  specialist  should  be  a  teacher,  than  that  the 
teacher  should  be  a  specialist.  The  great  investigator  should 
pass  on  his  results  and  his  methods  to  a  group  of  students; 
the  teacher  needs  to  be  kept  alive  by  the  spirit  of  research. 


CULTURE  DISCIPLINE  AND  DEMOCRACY  299 

But  no  scholar  should  teach  in  ignorance  of  such  results  as 
the  science  of  education  has  already  achieved,  and  no  other 
science  should  be  regarded  as  a  more  sacred  field  for  patient 
and  persistent  achievement.  The  civilization  of  one  genera- 
tion has  but  narrowly  completed  its  task  when,  through  spe- 
cialist and  recorded  knowledge,  it  passes  on  to  the  next  the 
spiritual  inheritance  of  the  race,  together  with  its  own  addi- 
tion to  it.  The  educational  function  of  democracy  and  of  mod- 
ern civiKzation  is  far  broader.  They  must  ensure  to  every 
individual  those  phases  in  this  inheritance  which  will  most 
certainly  secure  his  individual  well-being  and  that  of  society. 
Ample  provision  has  been  made  for  academic  research  and  the 
perpetuation  of  its  triumphs.  The  specialized  scholarship  of 
the  future  is  secure.  But  as  yet  small  provision  has  been 
made  for  the  development  of  the  science  without  which  the 
educational  aim  cannot  be  realized  for  and  through  the  masses, 
the  immense  simas  spent  in  popular  education  will  be  rela- 
tively wasted  and  the  only  true  civilization — the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  whole  of  society — ^will  be  immeasurable  retarded. 
While  groups  of  experts  provided  by  national  governments 
are  solving  scientific  and  industrial  problems  in  every  known 
field  of  material  progress,  through  a  blind  trust  in  the  infalli- 
bility of  scholarship  these  tremendous  educational  issues  are 
left  to  academic  disputation  and  individual  or  institutional 
solution.  Surely  the  time  cannot  be  much  further  delayed 
when,  with  national  sanction  and  support,  the  men  whose 
training  and  experience  have  best  fitted  them  for  the  task 
of  inductive  educational  research  will  consecrate  their  time 
and  energy  to  the  advancement  of  the  science  on  which  the 
future  happiness  of  humanity  most  directly  depends,  and 
through  which  each  individual  can  enter  most  fully  into  the 
rights  and  duties  of  democracy  and  civilization. 


REFERENCES 


1.  For  extract  from  Jeremy  Bentham's  "Chrestomathia"  and  criticism 

of  his  school  program,  see  Joseph  Payne,  "Lectures  on  the  Science 
and  Art  of  Education,"  Willard  Small,  Boston,  1884,  pp.  243-245. 

2.  Joseph  Pa)aie,  ''Lectures  on  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education,'* 

P-  253. 

3.  Joseph  Pa)me,  "Lectures  on  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education," 

pp.  264-274. 

4.  See  Sir  Joshua  Fitch,  "Thomas  and  Matthew  Arnold  and  Their 

Influence  on  English  Education,"  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New 
York,  1899,  P-  Z1' 

5.  W.  T.  Harris,  Report  of  the  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  1889- 

90,  p.  iiii;  extract  from  an  address  given  before  the  State 
Teachers'  Association  of  Ohio  in  June,  1888. 

6.  Joseph  Pa3Tie,  "Lectures  on  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education," 

Willard  Small,  Boston,  1884,  pp.  260-280. 

7.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  D.  Appleton  &  Co., 

New  York,  1902,  Chapter  IX,  pp.  366-373. 

8.  Questionnaire  of  New  York  City  High  School  Teachers'  Associa- 

tion.    See  15. 

9.  Henry  S.  Pritchett,  Fifth  Annual  Report  of  the  President  and  of  the 

Treasurer  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of 
Teaching,  New  York,  1910,  pp.  69-73. 

10.  Isaac  J.  Schwatt,  "On  the  Curriculum  of  Mathematics,"  p.  11; 

paper  read  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Association  of  Mathemat- 
ical Teachers  in  New  England,  Boston,  December  28,  1909. 
Reprinted  from  "Mathematics  Teacher." 

11.  W.  H.  Heck  admirably  summarizes  these  experiments  in  Chapter  III 

of  his  "Mental  Discipline,"  John  Lane  Co.,  New  York,  191 1. 

12.  "Laboratory  Manual  of  Elementary  Science,"  issued  by  the  Board 

of  Education  of  Pittsburgh,  Pa.,  for  use  in  its  high  schools,  1911. 

13.  See  "The  Musician,"  March,  1912,  pp.  223-233,  "Some  Develop- 

ments in  Public  School  Music;  Credits  for  Outside  Study," 
Osbourne  McConathy,  Supervisor  of  Music  in  the  Public  Schools 
of  Chelsea,  Mass. 

14.  See  catalogue  of  University  of  Wisconsin,  1910-11,  p.  476. 

15.  "Articulation  of  High  School  and  College,"  containing  a  "State- 

ment of  the  High  School  Teachers'  Association  and  Opinions  from 
College  Presidents,  Superintendents,  and  High  School  Principals," 
High  School  Teachers'  Association,  New  York  City,  November, 
1910. 

300 


REFERENCES  301 

16.  Dr.  P.  P.  Claxton,  now  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  has  taken 

the  first  step  toward  such  a  unification  of  educational  research 
through  the  Bureau  by  appointing  the  writer  collaborator  in  the 
Division  of  Child  Hygiene,  with  the  authority  to  institute  inquiry 
as  to  the  present  status  of  experimentation  within  the  field  of 
actual  instruction  and  to  further  such  experimentation  through 
the  Bureau. 

17.  Andrew  Fleming  West,  New  York  "Times"  and  Philadelphia  "Public 

Ledger,"  September  23,  1911. 

18.  Theodore  Roosevelt,  "The  Outlook,"  February  18,  1911,  pp.  344- 

346,  "A  Noteworthy  Project  in  Higher  Education." 

19.  Benjamin   Rush,   "Essays,   Literary,   Moral,   and   Philosophical," 

Thos.  and  Samuel  F.  Bradford,  Philadelphia,  1798,  p.  43. 

20.  W.  T.  Harris,  "Psychological  Foundations  of  Education,"  D.  Apple- 

ton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1904,  Chapter  HI,  pp.  23-31. 

21.  W.  T.  Harris,  Report  of  tj.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  1890-91, 

pp.  1048,  1049. 

22.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  p.  118. 

23.  Oswald   Kiilpe,   "Outlines   of   Psychology,"   translated  from   the 

German  (1893)  by  E.  B.  Titchener,  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York, 
1895,  pp.  171-177- 

24.  W.  H.  Payne,  "Contributions  to  the  Science  of  Education,"  American 

Book  Co.,  New  York,  Cincinnati,  Chicago,  1886,  pp.  57,  58. 

25.  Andrew  Fleming  West,  "Education  and  Intelligence,"  reprinted  from 

the  New  York  "Times"  and  Philadelphia  "Public  Ledger"  of 
September  23,  191 1,  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  October,  191 1. 

26.  John  Russell's  memoir  in  "Life  and  Remains  of  R.  H.  Quick,"  F. 

Storr,  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York  and  London,  1899,  p.  22. 

27.  Gabriel  Compayre,  "Lectures  on  Pedagogy,"  translated  from  the 

French  by  W.  H.  Payne,  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  Boston,  1896,  p.  448. 

28.  Hugo  Miinsterburg,  "McClure's  Magazine,"  April,  1904. 

29.  Earl  Barnes,  "Studies  in  Education,"  Second  Series,  published  by 

the  author,  Philadelphia,  1902,  pp.  43-61. 

30.  G.  Stanley  Hall,  "The  Contents  of  Children's  Minds  on  Entering 

School,"  E.  L.  Kellog  &  Co.,  New  York  and  Chicago,  p.  28. 

31.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  p.  23. 

32.  Francois  Rabelais,  "Gargantua,"  Book  I,  Chapter  XXHI. 

SS.  For  a  brief  discussion  of  the  "Five  Formal  Steps,"  see  W.  Rein, 
"Outlines  of  Pedagogics,"  translated  from  the  German  by  G.  C. 
and  Ida  J.  Van  Liew,  E.  L.  Kellog  &  Co.,  New  York  and  Chicago, 
1893,  pp.  101-114. 

34.  J.  J.   Findlay,   "Principles  of   Class  Teaching,"   Macmillan   Co.^ 

London,  1902,  p. 143. 

35.  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  Religio  Medici,"  Ticknor  &  Fields,  Boston, 

1863. 

36.  Reuben  Post  Halleck,  "Psychology  and  Psychic  Culture,"  American 

Book  Co.,  New  York,  Cincinnati,  Chicago,  1895,  pp.  84,  85. 

37.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  "Meaning  of  Educadon,"  Macmillan  Co., 

New  York,  1905,  pp.  76-84. 

38.  Joseph, Payne,  "Lectures  on  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education,"  pp. 

242-249. 


302  REFERENCES 

39.  Herbert  Spencer,  "Education,"  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York, 

1906,  Chapter  I,  "What  Knowledge  is  of  Most  Worth?"  pp.  74,  75. 

40.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  p.  367. 

41.  Charles  De   Garmo,   "Principles  of   Secondary  Education:   "The 

Studies,"  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York,  1907,  pp.  30-34. 

42.  Discussed  by  the  writer  at  teachers'  institute,  Hazleton,  Pa.,  1909, 

and  elsewhere.  Emphasized  in  paper  of  Professor  I.  W.  Howerth, 
before  Society  of  College  Teachers  of  Education,  191 1. 

43.  Walter  G.  McMullin,  "Grammar  in  Our  Schools,"  "The  Teacher," 

Philadelphia,  September,  191 1. 

44.  Discussion  by  William  Gardner  Hale  in  "A  S3anposium  on  Reform 

in  Grammatical  Nomenclature  in  the  Study  of  the  Languages" 
(part  of  the  program  of  the  Michigan  Schoolmasters'  Club, 
Ann  Arbor,  Michigan,  April  i,  191 1),  "The  School  Review," 
University  of  Chicago  Press,  Vol.  XIX,  No.  9,  November,  191 1, 
pp.  630-642. 

45.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  D.  Appleton  &  Co., 

New  York,  1902,  pp.  171,  172. 

46.  John  Dewey,  "How  We  Think,"  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,   Boston, 

1910. 

47.  W.  H.  Heck,  "Mental  Discipline  and  Educational  Values,"  John 

Lane  Co.,  New  York,  191 1,  pp.  140-147. 

48.  William  James,  "Talks  on  Psychology  to  Teachers,"  Henry  Holt  & 

Co.,  New  York,  1910,  p.  81. 

49.  W.  H.  Heck,  "Mental  Discipline  and  Educational  Values,"  pp.  146- 

148.  (Here  Professor  Heck  comments  on  the  position  taken  by 
Bagley  in  his  "Educative  Process,"  1905,  pp.  216,  222,  223.) 

50.  David  Fordyce,  "Dialogues  Concerning  Education,"  London,  1745, 

pp.  270,  271. 

51.  John  Dewey,  "How  We  Think,"  D.  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  Boston,  1910, 

pp.  111-115. 

52.  John  Adams,  "Herbartian  Psychology  Applied  to  Education,"  D.  C. 

Heath  &  Co.,  Boston,  1906,  Chapter  VI,  pp.  135-162. 

53.  Thomas  Arnold's  own  account  of  Rugby  in  the  "Journal  of  Educa- 

tion," 1834,  quoted  by  Sir  Joshua  Fitch,  "Thomas  and  Matthew 
Arnold,"  p.  35. 

54.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  pp.  365-366. 

55.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  pp.  366-378. 

56.  Report  of  American  Subcommittee  of  the  International  Commission 

on  the  Teaching  of  Mathematics. 

57.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  pp.  152,  153. 

58.  Thomas  Hill,  "True  Order  of  Studies,"  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New 

York  and  London,  1894. 

59.  Questionnaire  of  New  York  City  High  School  Teachers'  Associa- 

tion.    See  15. 

60.  W.  G.  Hale,  in  discussion  referred  to  above.     See  44. 

61.  "The  School  Review,"  pp.  618,  619.    Professor  A.  F.  Kuersteiner's 

paper  in  the  Symposium  just  referred  to  on  "The  Problem  from 
the  Standpoint  of  the  Romance  Languages:  French." 

62.  Discussion  by  C.  R.  Rounds  in  Symposium  referred  to  above, 

"School  Review,"  pp.  610-615. 


REFERENCES  303 

63.  Thomas  Hill,  "The  True  Order  of  Studies,"  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons, 

New  York  and  London,  1894,  pp.  86-90. 

64.  Sydney  Smith,  Review  of  R.  L.  Edgeworth's  Essays  on  Professional 

Education,  "Edinburgh  Review,"  October,  1809,  pp.  38-50. 

65.  Thomas  Hill,  Oration  before  Phi-Beta-Kappa  Society  of  Harvard, 

1858,  p.  15. 

66.  Benjamin  Rush,   "Essays,  Literary,   Moral,   and  Philosophical," 

Thos.  and  Samuel  F.  Bradford,  Philadelphia,  1798,  p.  6. 

67.  Quotation  from  Franciscus  Floridas  in  W.  H.  Woodward's  "Deside- 

rius  Erasmus  Concerning  the  Aim  and  Method  of  Education," 
Cambridge,  at  University  Press,  1904,  p.  67. 

68.  Sir  Thomas  More,  "Utopia,"  translated  in  Henry  Morley's  "Ideal 

Commonwealths,"  George  Routledge  &  Sons,  London  and 
New  York,  1896,  p.  114. 

69.  C.  B.  Gilbert,  in  numerous  addresses  at  teachers'  institutes  and 

elsewhere. 

70.  Paul  Hanus,  "Educational  Aims  and  Educational  Values,"  Macmil- 

lan  Co.,  New  York,  1902,  pp.  1 22-131. 

71.  See  course  of  study  of  the  Wharton  School  of  Finance  and  Commerce, 

University  of  Pennsylvania. 

72.  W.  T.  Harris,  Report  of  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  1892-93, 

p.  146. 

73.  W.  T.  Harris,  in  Addresses  and  Proceedings  of  the  National  Educa- 

tion Association,  1889,  "Art  Education  the  True  Industrial  Edu- 
cation," pp.  647-655. 

74.  Sir  Joshua  Fitch,  "Thomas  and  Matthew  Arnold,"  p.  185. 

75.  "Protagoras  of  Plato,"  as  translated  in  Paul  Monroe's  "Source  Book 

of  the  History  of  Education,"  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York,  1906, 
p.  32. 

76.  W.  T.  Harris,  in  the  Report  of  the  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education, 

1892-93,  Vol.  II,  p.  1463. 

77.  Sir  Joshua  Fitch,  "Thomas  and  Matthew  Arnold,"  p.  35. 

78.  "Isocrates'    Oration   Against    the    Sophists,"    translated   in    Paul 

Monroe's  "Source  Book  of  the  History  of  Education,"  Macmillan 
Co.,  New  York,  1906,  p.  94. 

79.  Frank  M.  McMurry,  "What  Omissions  are  Advisable  in  the  Present 

Course  of  Study,  and  What  Should  Be  the  Basis  for  the  Same?" 
Addresses  and  Proceedings  of  the  National  Education  Associa- 
tion, 1904,  pp.  194-202. 

80.  W.   H.   Pa)me,   "Contributions    to    the    Science   of    Education," 

American  Book  Co.,  New  York,  Cincinnati,  Chicago,  1886,  pp. 
50-56. 

81.  Paul  Hanus,  "Educational  Aims  and  Educational  Values,"  Mac- 

millan Co.,  New  York,  1902,  pp.  29,  30. 

82.  James  A.  McLellan  and  John  Dewey,  "The  Psychology  of  Number," 

D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York,  1898,  pp.  23-34. 

83.  Dr.   W.   P.   Chancellor,   Superintendent   of   City   Schools,   South 

Norwalk,  Connecticut,  submitted  20,000  words,  taken  from  the 
New  York  "Times"  and  New  York  "Evening  Post,"  to  a  com- 
tee  of  teachers,  who  selected  from  among  them  the  most  frequently 
recurring  that  were  difficult  to  spell. 


304  REFERENCES 

84.  J.  E.  Wallace  Wallin,  "Spelling  EflQciency  in  Relation  to  Age, 

Grade,  and  Sex,  and  the  Question  of  Transfer,"  Warwick  &  York, 
Baltimore,  191 1. 

85.  Georg  Kerschensteiner,  "Education  for  Citizenship,"  Rand,  McNally 

&  Co.,  Chicago,  London,  New  York,  191 1,  p.  100.  Translated 
from  the  German  by  A.  J.  Pressland  for  the  Commercial  Club  of 
Chicago. 

86.  Miss  Frances  Wister,  "Syllabus  of  Civic  Instruction,"  prepared  for 

League  of  Good  Citizenship,  Philadelphia.  See  also  Arthur  W. 
Dunn,  "The  Community  and  the  Citizen." 

87.  Joseph  Payne,  "Lectures  on  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education," 

pp.  335-384. 

88.  Francis  and  H.  L.  Wayland,  "A  Memoir  of  the  Life  and  Labors  of 

Francis  Wayland,  D.D.,  LL.D.,"'  Sheldon  &  Co.,  New  York, 
1867  (two  vols.).  Vol.  I,  pp.  232-240. 

89.  Nicholas   Murray   Butler,    "The    Meaning  of   Education,"  Mac- 

millan  Co.,  New  York,  1905,  p.  79. 

90.  Winthrop  D.  Sheldon,  Vice-President  of  Girard  College,  "Educa- 

tion," Vol.  XXVII,  Nos.  4,  5,  and  6,  December,  1906,  and 
January  and  February,  1907,  The  Palmer  Co.,  Boston.  "Some 
Practical  Suggestions  Toward  a  Program  of  Ethical  Culture  in 
Our  Schools." 

91.  Milton   Fairchild's  lessons  in  morals   given  through   stereoscopic 

reproductions  of  photographs  of  incidents  in  real  life  illustrative 
of  fundamental  moral  truths.  National  Institute  for  Moral 
Instruction,  Baltimore,  Maryland. 

92.  James  Terry  White,  "Character  Lessons  in  American  Biography," 

prepared  for  the  Character  Development  League,  Success  Build- 
ing, New  York,  1909. 

93.  "Life  and  Remains  of  Rev.  R.  H.  Quick,"  F.  Storr,  Macmillan  Co., 

New  York,  1899,  p.  24. 

94.  Joseph  Payne,  "Lectures  on  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education," 

pp.  218-229. 

95.  Thomas  Hill,  "The  True  Order  of  Studies,"  Chapter  VII,  pp.  65-70. 

96.  Thomas  Hill,  "The  True  Order  of  Studies,"  pp.  149,  150. 

97.  Alexander  Bain,  "Education  as  a  Science,"  p.  368. 

98.  Proceedings  of  the  National  Confederation  of  State  Medical  Ex- 

amining and  Licensing  Boards,  Twentieth  Annual  Convention, 
St.  Louis,  1 9 10,  pp.  35-43.  Report  of  the  Committe  on  Materia 
Medica. 

99.  Edgar  James  Swift,  "Mind  in  the  Making,"  Charles  Scribner's  Sons, 

New  York,  1908. 

100.  Charles  Hubbard  Judd,  "Individualism  in  the  Choice  of  Studies," 

University  of  Chicago  Magazine,  March,  191 1. 
loi.  W.  C.  Bagley,  "Educational  Values,"  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York, 
191 1,  Chapter  VII,  pp.  107-116. 


ANALYTIC   INDEX 


Academic  concentration:  Its  emphasis  for  sake  of  formal  discipline,  13,  14; 
decreasing  concentration  the  first  check  to  discipline,  14;  present  reaction 
toward  it,  14,  15;  reaction  not  the  sole  alternative,  15,  134;  lessened  amount 
of  formal  memorizing  a  second  check,  15;  neglect  of  pedagogic  method,  a 
third,  16;  remoteness  from  every-day  life,  a  fourth,  17;  lessened  confidence 
in  formal  discipline,  17;  organized  demand  for  direct  preparation  for  life, 
19-23;  true  readjustment  determined' by  science,  23,  24;  premature  spe- 
cialization hostile  to  culture  and  democracy,  27,  28;  experience  strong 
enough  to  dominate  it,  191;  its  relative  uselessness.  Chap.  IV,  iia-135; 
small  part  of  the  true  remedy  for  inadequate  disciphne,  112,  288;  the  old 
education  and  the  new  complementary,  194.  See  Formal  subjects,  Spe- 
cialization, and  System. 

Adams,  John:   Analysis  of  observation,  102,  Note  52. 

Adaptation,  the  power  of:  The  recognition  of  a  general  stimulus  in  an  un- 
usual situation,  92;  instruction  must  not  depend  upon  it,  92;  as  essential 
as  appHcation,  108;  can  result  from  the  partial  study  of  sciences,  108;  the 
study  of  mathematics  ill  suited  to  develop  it,  109. 

/Esthetic  appreciation:  Distinct  from  artistic,  114;  a  form  of  self-expression, 
145;  possible  to  all,  145;  requires  time  now  devoted  to  drawing  and  paint- 
ing, 148;  it,  rather  than  drawing,  essential  to  artistic  production,  148; 
ready  accessibihty  of  suitable  material,  148;  reading  by  note  versus  love 
of  good  music,  149;  even  poor  singing  useful,  149;  development  of  natural 
musical  taste,  149;  history  of  music  and  art  essential  in  the  college  course, 
151;  meniorizing  nanies  of  great  artists  and  their  masterpieces,  153;  sacrifice 
of  aesthetic  appreciation  to  artistic,  152;  interference  of  other  phases  of  in- 
struction, 151-156;  impressive  presentation  of  masterpieces,  154;  juveniliz- 
ing  of  literature  a  check  to  the  development  of  aesthetic  taste,  154;  inten- 
sive study  of  masterpieces  another,  156;  aesthetic  enjoyment  most  useful 
through  furtherance  of  other  phases  of  direct  preparation  for  life,  194. 
See  Artistic  expression. 

Algebra:   See  Mathematics. 

Amherst:   Recommendations  of  class  of  1885,  26,  161. 

Analysis  and  synthesis:  Prof.  Dewey's  distinction,  loi;  analysis  and  syn- 
thesis a  condition  to  general  discipline,  101-108;  conditions  favorable  to 
analysis,  102;  synthesis  on  recognition  of  parts  of  a  composite  stimulus, 
103,  io9j  analysis  and  synthesis  confined  to  particular  fields,  99,  100; 
ensured  in  a  variety  of  fields  only  by  direct  preparation  for  Hfe,  105-107; 
its  application  impossible  in  fields  whose  details  are  unfamiliar,  103;  sug- 
gested within  the  academic  branches  by  the  type  of  material  ordinarily 
associated  with  it,  106;  in  direct  preparation  results  in  the  stimulus  in  the 
face  of  conflicting  suggestions,  106;  and  unassisted  by  concrete  details 
helpful  in  the  abstract  subjects,  107;  temporary  interest  a  favorable  condi- 
tion to  it,  108;  synthesis  of  the  stimulus  as  a  whole  a  check  upon  hasty 
inference,  108;  drill  in  adaptation  involved  in  scientific  experimentation, 
108;  demands  mastery  of  no  one  science  as  a  whole,  109;  mathematics  ill 
suited  to  develop  adaptation  or  truthfulness,  109. 

Apperception:  Distinction  between  varying  apperception  and  specific  disci- 
pline,_  60.  See  Varying  apperception,  Mere  remembrance,  Cumulative  im- 
pression, and  Speeific  and  General  discipline. 

20  305 


3o6  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

Arithmetic:  Its  more  concentrated  study  ensures  adequate  discipline,  i, 
Note  lo;  not  commonly  taught  through  pedagogical  method,  62;  the  most 
generally  useful  stimulus  favorable  to  discipline,  15,  86;  necessity  of  asso- 
ciating with  it  the  terminology  and  experience  essential  in  the  most  useful 
fields  of  application,  99,  100,  103 ;  much  mastery  of  subject  matter  in  spe- 
cialized fields  unnecessary  and  wasteful,  117,  118,  121;  the  most  general 
stimulus  the  most  useful,  but  the  more  concrete  the  more  certain,  104,  105; 
mastery  of  mathematics  of  little  aid  to  mere  remembrance  and  varying 
apperception,  11 6-1 18,  207;  number  too  general  in  its  application  to  ensure 
many-sided  associations,  118;  arithmetic  useful  enough  to  be  organized  as  an 
academic  whole,  252,  262.     See  Mathematics. 

Arnold,  Matthew:  Responsible  for  school  children  reading  masterpieces  of 
literature  as  wholes,  155,  Note  74;  insistence  that  religious  drill  breeds 
irreverence,  255,  Note  93. 

Arnold,  Thos.:  Attempt  to  associate  the  study  of  Latin  with  modern  life, 
14,  Note  4;  appeal  for  the  classics  from  this  point  of  view,  115,  161,  Notes 
53  and  77. 

Artistic  expression:  Not  essential  to  the  masses,  114,  144;  possible  only  to 
the  specialist,  114,  145;  unessential  to  general  culture,  145;  furthered  at 
the  expense  of  aesthetic  appreciation  and  democratic  culture,  145,  146,  150, 
151,  152;  opportunity  for  the  discovery  of  genius,  196;  recognition  of  artistic 
training  given  outside  the  school,  147.     See  JEsthetic  appreciation. 

Arts,  fine:  Ensure  the  emotional  form  essential  to  cumulative  impression 
and  favorable  to  general  discipline,  95,  114,  156-158;  most  useful  when  it 
furthers  right  living,  194;  the  more  aesthetic  and  emotional  the  immoral, 
the  greater  its  harmfulness,  182;  early  organization  of  art  material  useful, 
221,  263,  267. 

Associations.    See  Relationships. 

Avocation:  Adaptation  of  individual  avocation  to  varying  environment  and 
mood,  279;  active  as  well  as  passive,  279;  the  field  for  specialized  avocation 
determined  by  individual  interest,  279,  280;  within  the  field  many-sidedness 
and  recurrence  determining,  280.     See  Culture. 

Bagley,  W..  C:  His  experiments  lessened  confidence  in  formal  discipline,  18; 
general  discipline  not  a  matter  of  course,  78;  the  emotional  general  idea  as 
the  chief  condition  to  application,  93,  Note  49;  his  broad  concept  of  "social 
efiiciency,"  290,  Note,  loi. 

Bain,  Alexander:  Disciplinary  value  of  Latin,  14,  Note  7;  memorizing  the 
most  exhaustive  phase  of  mental  work,  44,  Note  31;  classical  study  expends 
memory,  76,  Note  40;  his  criticism  of  drawing,  89,  102,  Note  45;  classical 
culture  mainly  possible  through  good  translations,  115,  Note  54;  discipline 
from  the  study  of  Latin,  not  peculiar  to  it,  116,  Note  55;  cultural  value  of 
mathematics,  118,  Note  57;  transition  from  Latin  and  Greek  grammar  to 
English,  127;  English  grammar  a  step  toward  the  mastery  of  a  foreign  one, 
266,  Note  97. 

Bardeen,  C.  W.:   His  satirical  example  of  artificial  correlation,  51. 

Barnes,  Earl:   Prevalence  of  partial  concepts,  41,  Note  29. 

Bentham,  Jeremy:  Proposed  curriculum  for  the  teaching  of  science,  12,  13, 
Note  I. 

Berkeley,  California:  Recognition  in  its  public  schools  of  outside  musical 
training,  20,  147,  Note  13. 

Butler,  Nicholas  Murray:  Distrust  of  "experience  that  stands  alone,"  62, 
Note  37;  his  protest  against  "hammering  the  facts  home,"  246,  Note  89. 

Carnegie  foundation:  Reaction  toward  academic  concentration,  15,  Note  9. 
Chelsea,  Massachusetts:  Recognition  in  its  public  schools  of  outside  musical 
training,  20,  147,  Note  13. 


ANALYTIC  INDEX  307 

Citizenship:  Systematic  civic  training,  63,  64;  its  reorganization  of  every-day 
experience,  68,  69;  office  of  typical  relationships,  55,  56;  of  the  terminology 
of  fields  of  application,  99;  the  habit  of  analysis,  105;  operates  in  the  face 
of  opposing  tendencies,  106;  common  culture  essential  to  (democracy,  141, 
142,  144-147,  156-158;  overemphasis  of  artistic  training  undemocratic, 
144-146;  promotion  dependent  upon  artistic  skill  doubly  undemocratic, 
14s;  grammatical  speech  and  a  common  love  of  good  literature  favorable 
to  democracy,  146;  ignorance  of  essential  knowledge  too  severe  a  penalty 
for  carelessness  or  incompetence,  171;  its  compulsory  mastery,  171;  in- 
adequacy of  general  moral  habits,  226;  analysis  conditional  to  the  de- 
termination of  relative  worth,  241-243;  determination  of  the  most  useful 
general  stimulus,  228-230;  the  cumulative  system  resulting  from  the  test 
of  relative  worth,  249-251;  includes  much  civil  government,  251.  See 
Chaps.  IX  and  X. 

Civil  Government:  A  subordinate  phase  of  civic  training,  40,  251. 

Combes'  Conservatory  of  Music:  Training  of  children  to  recognize  great 
composers  and  their  masterpieces,  151. 

Concentration:  Compelled  by  the  test  of  relative  worth,  266,  267.  See 
Academic  concentration.  Vocational  specialization,  Continuity,  Chap.  X, 
282-299;  and  of  Dominance,  230-234,  and  Chap.  IX,  237-281. 

Continuity:  Its  office  defined,  282;  essential  to  both  specific  and  general 
discipline,  61,  72,  82-85;  often  lacking  in  the  ''formal"  or  academic  sub- 
jects after  instruction  ceases,  61,  72,  84;  direct  preparation  for  life  ensures 
it,  62,  68,  72,  81-83,  84,  85;  furthered  by  regularity  of  recurrence,  72; 
favored  if  habit  is  initially  formed  in  the  field  in  which  it  is  to  continue,  82; 
ensured  through  the  cumulative  system  which  results  from  the  test  of  rela- 
tive worth,  266;  primarily  through  direct  preparation,  secondarily  through 
speciaUzation,  Chap.  X,  182-299;  continuity  essential  to  the  dominance  of 
discipline,  282-285;  assured  for  simple  habit  through  experience  and  cumu- 
lative impression,  282;  essential  to  gradation  in  mastery  of  system,  283; 
assured  only  through  pedagogical  method,  283;  favored  by  early  academic 
specialization,  284;  dominance  assured  through  direct  preparation,  288- 
290;  and  not  through  vocational  specialization,  285;  results  from  academic 
specialization  with  varying  vocational  motive,  286-288;  early  opportunity 
for  specialization,  290;  individual  experience  strong  enough  to  dominate 
the  merely  academic,  291 ;  but  continuity  through  academic  and  vocational 
specialization  must  supplement  that  of  direct  preparation,  296. 

Course  of  study,  tentative  conclusions  concerning  the:  No  requirement 
of  subjects  as  wholes  on  disciplinary  grounds  alone,  74,  112,  123;  its  re- 
quired content  limited  to  the  most  useful  relationships  selected  from  the 
whole  range  of  knowledge  and  experience,  112,  123;  its  organization  for 
both  direct  and  indirect  furtherance  of  the  educational  aim,  123;  general 
education,  culture, f and  specialization  must  parallel  each  other,  159, 172-178; 
mathematics  largely  left  to  the  specialist,  123-126;  the  test  of  relative  worth 
may  result  in  a  broader  elementary  course,  123,  124,  Note  58;  more  thorough 
training  through  algebra  and  geometry  as  electives,  125,  126;  requirement  of 
particular  foreign  languages  already  abandoned,  126,  127;  with  no  foreign 
language  required,  one  or  more  should  be  thoroughly  mastered  by  most 
students,  127,  128;  more  efficient  work  as  a  result,  128;  tendency  toward 
requiring  one  or  more  sciences,  130;  the  habits  peculiar  to  laboratory  ex- 
perimentation assured  by  the  study  of  those  sciences  which  are  most  di- 
rectly useful,  130,  131;  with  a  broad  elementary  course  in  natural  science, 
specialization  possible  in  the  college,  131,  Note  63;  increased  representa- 
tion of  subjects  rich  in  humanistic  content,  132;  the  use  of  selected  portions 
of  academic  branches  no  menace  to  discipHne,  132-134;  the  aim  of  the 
specialist  completeness,  133;  such  completeness  in  elementary  study 
hostile  both  to  interest  and  discipline,  133 ;  the  remedy,  selection  within  the 
various  branches,  133;  organization  of  selected  subject  matter  academic 


^o8  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

as  well  as  for  direct  preparation,  134,  135:  inadequacy  of  tests  for  the  mere 
elimination  of  details,  179-190,  Chap.  VII;  fundamental  distinction  be- 
tween essential  and  optional  relationships,  165;  an  exact  determination  of 
relative  worth  unnecessary,  166,  167;  local  courses  of  study  uniform  in 
their  essential  relationships  and  relative  usefulness  of  optional  material, 
Chap.VI,  165-178;  identity  no  menace  to  individuality,  168;  ignorance  of 
essential  relationships  too  severe  a  penalty  for  carelessness  or  incom- 
petence, 171;  their  compulsory  mastery,  171;  effect  on  the  elementary 
course,  a  different  selection  of  details  and  their  reorganization  for  direct 
preparation,  267-269;  on  higher  education,  the  requirement  of  essential 
parts  of  some  branches  now  elective,  270;  reorganization  into  a  cumulative 
system  of  essentially  useful  relationships,  267-271;  academic  and  directly 
useful  organization  should  parallel  each  other,  268;  all  forecasts  of  course 
tentative,  271.     See  Direct  preparation  and  System. 

Culture:  Interdependence  of  culture  and  direct  preparation  for  life.  Chap.  V, 
136-164;  varying  apperception  of  an  essential  relationship  a  means  to  useful 
culture,  97;  culture  not  a  distinct  form  of  self-activity,  136;  in  itself  a  partial 
phase  of  direct  preparation,  137;-  its  essential  factors,  137*  138;  no  longer 
confined  to  the  leisure  class,  139;  modern  culture  so  extensive  as  to  make 
necessary  selection  and  specialization,  28,  138,  139;  specialization  preceded 
by  a  common  culture,  140;  elimination  of  everything  antagonistic  to  direct 
preparation,  140,  141;  its  furtherance  of  citizenship,  141;  its  relationship 
to  vocation  and  other  phases  of  direct  preparation,  141;  such  relationship 
essential  to  democracy,  142;  not  dominantly  vocational,  142;  vocational 
specialization  to  be  paralleled  by  general  culture  related  to  vocation, 
and  all  speciaUzation  by  direct  preparation,  143,  144,  159;  continuity 
essential  for  culture,  direct  preparation  in  general,  and  specialization,  143, 
159;  their  optional  content  common,  176;  overemphasis  of  artistic  training 
an  obstacle  to  democratic  culture,  144,  145;  an  exclusively  analytic  study 
of  literary  technique  another  menace,  146;  grammatical  speech  and  com- 
position and  love  of  good  literature  essential  to  democratic  culture,  146; 
means  to  the  development  of  a  common  aesthetic  appreciation,  147-152; 
interference  of  other  phases  of  instruction  with  aesthetic  training,  152-156;  a 
part  of  the  cultural  content  involved  in  direct  preparation  and  general 
discipline,  156-158;  culture  dependent  upon  direct  preparation,  158,  159; 
involves  all  phases  of  formal  self-activity,  158,  159;  only  specialized  classi- 
cal study  adequate  to  culture,  160,  161;  classical  idioms  and  forms  not 
essential  to  it,  160;  the  classics  increasingly  precious  for  the  specialist,  161; 
reversal  of  the  present  relationship  of  the  classics  and  ancient  history,  161; 
the  cultural  material  essential  to  all  determined  by  the  test  of  relative  worth, 
162;  exclusion  of  masses  from  higher  education  fatal  both  to  individualism 
and  democracy,  163,  164. 

Cumulative  impression:  Educational  inadequacy  of  vague  impression,  31,  32; 
its  usefulness  dependent  on  that  of  the  centers  to  which  it  is  related,  32,  s^; 
not  properly  centered  it  may  be  harmful,  37,  38;  most  useful  when  centered 
about  essential  ideas,  39-41;  the  eflScacy  of  emotional  centers,  42;  varying 
apperception  may  be  hostile  to  cumulative  impression,  52,  96;  a  highly 
favorable  condition  to  general  discipline,  93-96;  mainly  useful  to  counter- 
act conflicting  tendencies,  93;  David  Fordyce's  illustration  of  the  extent 
to  which  it  dominates  character,  94,  95,  Note  50;  Hterature  and  the  fine 
arts  the  chief  means  to  emotional  form,  95 ;  emotional  material  lacking  in 
the  formal  subjects,  113;  its  emotional  appeal  the  chief  measure  of  its 
relative  worth,  191-194. 

Dayton,  Ohio:   Early  use  of  phonograph  to  develop  musical  taste,  150. 
DeGarmo,  Charles:  His  emphasis  of  "specific  discipline,"  77,  Note  41. 
Dewey,  John:  His  distinction  between  form  and  content  overemphasized,  90; 
his  definition  of  analysis  and  synthesis,  loi,  Note  51;  misappHcation  of 


ANALYTIC  INDEX  309 

analysis  of  the  steps  involved  in  forming  number  concept,  188,  Note  82; 
the  "motivation"  due  to  vocation,  285,  Note  100. 

Direct  preparation  for  life:  Conditions  responsible  for  increased  demand 
for  it,  11-18;  opposition  to  it  has  lessened  efficiency  of  discipline,  17;  more 
certain  than  general  discipline,  24,  25;  limited  to  vocation  hostile  to  culture 
and  democracy,  25;  inadequate  without  general  discipline,  29;  all  formal 
self-activity  more  useful  when  centered  about  directly  useful  ideas  and 
habits,  32,  36-38,  50-54;  direct  preparation  ensures  certainty,  system,  and 
continuity,  63,  65,  74,  120-122;  must  reorganize  every-day  experience,  67- 
69;  includes  all  essential  academic  organization,  74;  requires  analysis  and 
synthesis  in  the  face  of  conflicting  suggestions,  106;  best  assures  varying 
apperception,  120;  makes  certain  general  application  in  every-day  life, 
121;  does  not  compel  the  memorizing  of  the  useless,  121;  includes  the  specific 
associations  essential  to  general  discipHne  through  the  formal  subject,  105, 
121;  hence  the  most  efficient  means  to  general  discipline.  Chap.  IV,  1 10-135; 
many-sidedness  of  essential  ideas  distracts  from  their  mastery,  but  makes 
them  dominant,  122;  direct  preparation  includes  part  of  the  cultural  con- 
tent, 156-158;  early  association  of  directly  useful  relationships  with  apper- 
ceiving  centers,  202,  208;  their  determination  by  the  test  of  relative  worth, 
166,  239-245;  relative  worth  only  theoretically  useful,  166,  239;  the  relative 
time  devoted  to  each  dependent  upon  difficulty  of  reahzation,  240;  analysis 
of  each  phase  a  condition  to  the  application  of  test,  241,  242;  aided  by  effort 
to  ensure  the  five  phases  of  formal  self-activity,  242,  243;  the  cumulative 
system  of  direct  preparation  distinguished  from  mere  outHnes,  215,  246; 
academic  branches  included  in  it  only  through  parts  determined  by  the 
test  of  relative  worth,  251;  the  extent  to  which  it  involves  formal  lessons 
and  recitations,  255;  its  cumulative  organization  illustrated  for  morality 
and  health,  256-259;  such  organization  makes  certain  both  academic  sys- 
tem and  that  essential  to  formal  self -activity,  260-264,  292-294;  reorganiza- 
tion for  direct  usefulness  compelled  by  the  test  of  relative  worth,  259,  285; 
correlation  of  the  resulting  system  with  that  essential  to  general  discipline, 
267,  268,  286-289,  292,  294;  continuity  and  dominance  most  certain 
through  direct  preparation,  284,  289;  must  be  supplemented  by  subjective 
and  vocational  specialization,  296.     See  Chaps.  IX  and  X. 

Discipline:   See  Formal,  General,  and  Specific  discipline. 

Drawing:  Criticised  by  Alexander  Bain,  89,  102,  Note  45;  its  general  study 
unessential  to  artistic  production,  148. 

Educational  research:   See  Research,  educational. 

Elimination  of  details  from  the  course  of  study:  Inadequacy  of  tests  for 
elimination,  Chap.  VII,  179-190;  critique  of  Dr.  McMurry's  test,  179,  180; 
a  practicable  test  applicable  to  essential  and  optional  material,  181;  neces- 
sity for  further  exclusion  of  material  hostile  to  the  educational  aim,  181- 
183;  the  more  aesthetic  and  emotional  the  immoral,  the  more  dangerous,  182; 
ehmination  of  everything  hostile  to  good  citizenship,  182;  all  that  interests 
children  in  bloodshed,  atavistic,  183;  exclusion  of  all  not  useful  to  the 
majority  of  individuals,  183-186;  determination  of  immediate  relative 
worth  of  details  ehminates  specialized  material,  186;  elimination  of  all 
details  effectively  taught  outside  the  school,  187-190;  each  institution  hav- 
ing an  educational  function  responsible  for  every  phase  of  the  aim,  but  not 
for  the  same  details,  187,  188.     See  Relative  worth  of  details. 

Emotional  appeal  as  a  factor  in  determining  relative  worth:  The  chief 
measure  of  cumulative  impression,  1 91-194;  cumulative  impression  and 
remembrance  furthered  by  impressibility  and  readiness,  192;  the  form  of 
appeal  must  be  adapted  to  the  relationship  to  be  made  impressive,  192; 
increased  by  the  mere  concreting  of  an  emotional  idea,  193;  appeal  must  be 
in  the  useful  relationship  itself,  193;  the  emotional  impression  made  by  right 
activity  should  be  utilized,  194.    See  Cumulative  impression. 


3IO  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

English  grammar:  See  Grammar. 

Essential  relationships:  Contrasted  with  optional,  165,  166;  bearing  of  this 
contrast  on  the  recitation,  198;  certain  memorizing  limited  to  them,  166, 175; 
exact  determination  unnecessary,  166;  the  main  uniformity  in  local  courses 
of  study,  167-169;  their  memorizing  necessary  to  mastery  of  optional  mate- 
rial, 176,  177;  ignorance  of  them  too  severe  a  penalty  for  carelessness,  171; 
for  the  sake  of  both  individual  and  state  their  mastery  should  be  compelled, 
171;  discipHne,  culture  and  direct  preparation  differ  in  the  essential  rela- 
tionships brought  to  bear  upon  a  common  optional  material,  176,  177; 
vocational  specialization  and  general  education  partly  identical,  *i 77; 
relative  worth  of  essentials  not  dependent  on  readiness  of  mastery,  192; 
the  abundance  of  essential  relationships  immediately  useful,  196;  the  cumu- 
lative force  that  comes  with  their  early  mastery,  196;  their  cumulative 
associations  a  means  to  remember  by,  197;  their  certain  memorizing  and 
persistent  association  of  new  material  with  them,  231;  their  efficiency  de- 
pendent upon  the  usefulness  of  optional  "material,  197,  224,  231-233. 

Etymology:  Etymological  grouping  of  high  value  to  mere  remembrance,  207. 

Fairchild,  Milton  W.:  His  illustrated  talks  on  morals,  254,  Note  91. 

FiNDLAY,  J.  J.:   Illustration  of  artificial  and  useless  correlation,  51,  Note  34. 

Five  formal  steps:  Inadequate  to  useful  concentration,  50;  cannot  ensure 
general  application  without  specific  discipline,  76,  77. 

Fordyce,  David:  Illustrates  cumulative  effect  of  emotional  material,  94,  95, 
Note  50. 

Foreign  language:  Latin  selected  by  Joseph  Payne  as  means  to  discipline,  14; 
emphasized  by  Thomas  Arnold  and  W.  T.  Harris  for  its  relation  to  modern 
life,  14;  Alexander  Bain's  critique  of  its  disciphnary  value,  14;  his  insistence 
that  it  expends  the  memory,  76,  Note  40;  limited  subject  matter  of  abstract 
subjects  favorable  to  temporary  certainty  and  system,  61;  wasteful  to 
study  Latin  for  useful  habits  alone,  74,  80;  lacking  in  the  continuity  essen- 
tial to  permanent  discipline,  61,  72,  73;  in  linguistic  study  analysis  and 
synthesis  suggested  by  linguistic  material  alone,  106;  remembrance  and 
varying  apperception  furthered  by  ready  use  of  a  foreign  language,  115, 
224;  ready  use  involves  more  adequate  study  than  is  ordinary,  115;  reading 
of  good  translations  adequate,  115,  Note  54;  the  general  discipline  involved 
in  the  study  of  a  foreign  language  not  peculiar  to  it,  116;  the  requirement  of 
particular  languages  in  the  general  high  school  course  economic  rather  than 
pedagogic,  127;  no  foreign  language  should  be  required,  but  most  students 
should  master  one  or  more,  127, 170,  276-278;  the  result,  more  effective  work, 
128;  Latin  and  Greek  as  means  to  culture  belong  to  specialization,  160,  161; 
classical  forms  and  idioms  not  essential  to  general  culture,  160;  the  classics 
an  increasingly  precious  charge  upon  the  speciahst,  161;  reversal  of  the 
present  relationship  of  the  classics  and  ancient  history,  161;  practicability 
of  speciaHzation  in  language  at  an  early  age,  277;  choice  should  vary  with 
individual  and  national  group,  278. 

Formal  discipline:  Use  of  theory  as  defence  against  many-sided  cumculum, 
13;  present  reaction  toward  academic  concentration  for  sake  of  discipline, 
14,  15;  contrasted  with  general  discipline,  18;  lessened  confidence  in  theory, 
17,  18;  superseded  by  formal  self-activity,  33-35;  so  superseded,  no  longer 
the  sole  alternative  to  knowledge  and  culture,  no.  See  Formal  self -activity 
and  Formal  subjects. 

Formal  self-activity:  Distinction  between  direct  and  indirect  furtherance 
of  educational  aim,  35,  36;  analysis  into  its  five  phases,  33~35l  Chap.  II, 
30-78;  educational  aim  not  self-activity,  but  useful  self-activity,  30-33; 
the  fallacies  of  immediate  and  temporary  self -activity,  30;  31,  its  pedagog- 
ical versus  its  psychological  analysis,  33;  comparative  failure  of  the  formal 
subjects  to  further  any  other  form  of  it  than  specific  discipline,  Chap.^  IV, 
1 10-135;  summary  of  advantages  for  its  furtherance  possessed  by  direct 


ANALYTIC  INDEX  311 

preparation  for  life,  120-122;  the  subject  matter  which  furthers  it  deter- 
mined by  the  test  of  relative  worth,  Chap.  VIII,  191-236. 
Formal  subjects:  Limited  subject  matter  compels  temporary  certainty  and 
system,  61,  72,  113;  often  lack  continuity,  61,  72,  84;  academic  system  as  a 
whole  does  not  carry  over  beyond  its  special  field,  74,  80;  wasteful  to  master 
useless  knowledge  and  habits,  66,  74,  80;  abstract  subjects  useful  to  many 
classes  of  speciahsts,  66,  67,  274-278;  their  method  an  educational  end 
rather  than  a  means,  297;  in  their  study  analysis  and  synthesis  Hmited  to 
a  specific  type  of  material,  106;  this  material  often  too  concrete  to  aid  in 
carrying  analysis  over,  107;  their  comparative  uselessness  to  all  formal  self- 
activity  except  specific  discipHne,  Chap.  IV,  110-135;  lacking  in  the  emo- 
tional material  favorable  to  cumulative  impression,  113;  too  limited  in 
subject  matter  to  further  mere  remembrance  and  varying  apperception, 
114;  ready  use  of  languages  essential  to  varying  apperception  involves  more 
adequate  study  than  is  usually  given,  114,  115;  good  translations  adequate 
from  this  point  of  view,  115;  the  general  discipline  involved  in  a  foreign 
language  not  peculiar  to  it,  116,  Note  55;  mastery  of  mathematics  of  little 
aid  to  varying  apperception,  116-119,  Note  56;  number  too  general  in  its 
appHcation  to  recall  many-sided  associations,  118;  exclusion  from  higher 
education  for  failure  in  the  old  formal  subjects  fatal  to  individualism  and 
democracy,  163,  164. 

General  discipline:  Based  on  a  general  stimulus,  70;  the  useful  stimulus 
neither  too  narrow  nor  too  general,  70-74;  continuity  of  habit  essential,  72, 
82-85;  continuity  furthered  by  regularity  of  recurrence,  72;  its  operation 
limited  by  varying  apperception  and  specific  discipline,  75;  the  inadequacy 
of  discipline  without  it,  29,  69,  70,  Note  38;  a  "specific  discipline"  involves 
general  discipline  within  its  own  field,  77,  235,  Note  41;  habit  always 
specific,  but  its  stimulus  may  be  general,  71;  general  discipline  not  a  matter 
of  course,  78;  its  extent  dependent  upon  the  occurrence  of  its  stimulus,  79- 
82;  the  thoroughness  of  a  ''formal  discipline"  specific,  80;  habit  best  formed 
in  permanently  useful  fields,  82;  determination  of  the  extent  to  which 
application  is  useful,  82,  83;  the  conditions  of  general  discipline  identical  for 
form  and  content,  90;  conditions  fully  discussed  in  Chap.  Ill,  79-139; 
continuity,  the  first,  83-85;  the  second,  as  general  a  stimulus  as  is  useful, 
85-90;  the  third,  permanent  association  with  typical  applications,  68,  90, 
91;  the  fourth,  the  habit  of  seeking  applications,  91,  92;  the  fifth,  emotional- 
izing of  the  general  stimulus,  93,  96;  the  sixth,  association  with  all  possible 
other  ideas  and  activities,  96-98;  the  seventh,  association  of  the  knowledge 
necessary  to  identification  and  application,  98-101;  the  eighth,  the  habit 
of  analysis  and  synthesis,  101-108;  only  direct  preparation  for  life  ensures 
it  for  a  variety  of  fields,  105-108;  drill  in  adaptation  as  essential  as  persistent 
appHcation,  92,  102,  108;  mathematics  ill-suited  to  develop  it,  109;  the 
advantages  of  direct  preparation  as  a  means  to  formal  self-activity.  Chap, 
IV,  69,  1 10-135,  120-122;  dependence  of  general  discipline  upon  culture, 
156-158;  determination  of  the  relationships  most  useful  to  it  by  relative 
worth,  225-236;  each  highly  useful  application  of  a  stimulus  needs  the 
specific  systems  of  conditions  favorable  to  every  other,  231;  collectively 
they  constitute  a  system  distinct  from  academic,  23  2 ;  abstract  environment 
unfavorable  to  it,  232,  233;  concrete  assured  in  direct  preparation  for  life, 
233;  manual  training  as  a  means  to  general  discipline,  234;  general  academic 
discipline  involves  relationships  external  to  logical  organization,  235,  236; 
furthered  by  correlation  of  academic  system  with  direct  preparation,  236; 
the  continuity  and  dominance  of  the  conditions  favorable  to  general  disci- 
pline ensured  only  as  part  of  direct  preparation,  236.     See  General  stimulus. 

General  stimulus:  Basis  for  general  discipline,  70,  77,  85-90;  must  be  neither 
too  narrow  nor  too  general,  70-73;  its  occurrence  determines  the  extent 
of  general  discipline,  79-82;  habit  tends  to  remain  specific,  80;  substitution 


312  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

of  the  general  stimulus  for  the  specific,  8i,  87,  225;  memorizing  of  the 
essential  similarity  in  type  studies  in  general  form,  88;  drawing  presents 
too  general  a  stimulus  to  observation,  89,  Note  45;  conditions  favorable  to 
application  through  a  general  stimulus,  90-109;  the  most  general  useful 
stimulus  the  most  useful  potentially,  but  the  more  concrete  the  more 
certain,  104.     See  General  discipline  and  General  terms. 

General  terms:  Their  value  as  memory  and  apperceiving  centers,  202;  the 
most  useful  not  necessarily  taught  by  incidental  experience,  203,  204; 
basis  for  their  selection,  204,  205;  their  relatively  small  number,  206;  See 
General  stimulus. 

Genetic  conditions:   Determining,  for  optional  material  alone,  198,  199. 

Geography:  Elimination  of  physiographical  material,  185;  the  value  of 
general  geographical  locations  and  sequences  as  memory  and  apperception 
centers,  208-210;  the  determination  of  the  localities  most  useful  as  centers, 
203;  their  value  to  direct  preparation,  culture,  and  discipHne,  217,  218; 
increasingly  exact  location  necessary  as  knowledge  of  details  increases,  220; 
the  relative  uselessness  of  detailed  outlines,  88,  215;  application  of  the  test 
of  relative  worth  to  a  geographical  outline,  246-248;  the  true  type  study 
involves  general  form,  88;  early  organization  of  geographical  material 
useful,  252,  263;  specific  apperception  illustrated  through  natural  products, 
58;  lack  of  definite  geographical  knowledge,  59. 

Geometry:  All  stimuli  occur  in  the  most  general  form  possible,  86;  recognition 
of  part  of  a  complex  stimulus  must  habitually  be  followed  by  synthesis,  103. 
See  Mathematics. 

Gilbert,  C.  B.:  Vocational  specialization  in  elementary  education  hostile  to 
democracy,  142,  Note,  69. 

Grammar:  Variation  in  grammatical  nomenclature  a  bar  to  general  discipline, 
86;  grammatical  classification  useless  for  mere  remembrance,  206,  207; 
language  specifically  suggests  analysis,  106;  grammatical  organization  limited 
in  its  furtherance  of  correct  speech,  206;  its  analysis  and  synthesis  suggested 
by  a  particular  type  of  material,  106. 

Hale,  W.  G.:  Movement  to  ensure  uniformity  in  grammatical  nomenclature, 
86,  Note  44;  his  object  ready  carrying  over  of  principles  from  one  language 
to  another,  129,  Note  60.     See  Kuersteiner  and  Rounds. 

Hall,  G.  Stanley:  His  distrust  of  the  cultural  and  instrumental  value  of 
elementary  Latin,  115. 

Halleck,  R.  p.:  Illustration  of  var5dng  apperception,  58,  Note  s^. 

Hanus,  Paul:  The  centering  of  vocational  courses  about  a  common  arts  and 
science  course,  143,  Note  70;  his  example  of  a  teacher  without  an  aim,  184, 
Note  81. 

Harris,  W.  T.:  Emphasis  of  Latin  as  related  to  modern  life,  14,  Note  5; 
critique  of  oral  instruction,  31,  Note  21;  opposition  to  college  entrance 
requirements  that  prevent  a  public  school  education  for  leaders  of  thought, 
146,  Note  72;  his  advocacy  of  drawing  as  essential  to  American  industry, 
148,  Note  73;  and  of  classical  form  to  comprehension  of  ancient  life,  160, 
Note  76. 

Heck,  W.  H.:  Critique  of  Professor  Bagley's  emotional  general  idea,  93,  Note 
4^;  his  emphasis  of  the  distinction  between  form  and  content  unnecessary 
for  general  discipline,  90,  Note  47. 

Herbart,  J.  F.:  Urges  many-sidedness  as  only  substitute  for  all  knowledge 
possibly  useful,  69;  recognizes  the  inadequacy  of  specific  discipline,  76,  77; 
''concentration"  his  antidote  for  incidental  apperception,  50.^ 

Herbartianism:  Helped  weaken  confidence  in  formal  discipline,  14,  19; 
overemphasizes  academic  discipline,  71;  five  formal  steps  inadequate  to 
useful  concentration,  50,  295;  "preparation"  gives  greater  likelihood  and 
usefulness  to  mere  remembrance,  44;  apperception  includes  varying  apper- 
ception and  discipline,  47;  fails  in  not  emphasizing  specific  discipline,  77, 


ANALYTIC  INDEX  313 

Note  41;  no  analytic  study  of  application,  78;  general  form  essential  to  type 
studies,  88;  the  inadequacy  of  Herbartian  application,  90,  97,  216;  artificial 
application  unnecessary,  265;  the  relative  uselessness  of  academic  concen- 
tration, 288. 

Hill,  Thomas:  His  argument  in  favor  of  leaving  higher  mathematics  to  the 
specialist,  123,  Note  58;  his  similar  position  as  to  the  natural  sciences,  131, 
253,  Note  63;  his  judgment  as  to  the  most  valuable  phase  of  language  study, 
135;  his  illustration  of  elementary  science  teaching,  261,  Note  95;  defect  in 
his  "spiral  method,"  264,  Note  96. 

History:  System  in  the  teaching  of  history  dependent  upon  pedagogical 
method,  62;  value  of  general  historical  locations  and  sequences  as  memory 
and  apperceiving  centers,  208-210;  the  determination  of  the  periods  most 
useful  as  memory  centers,  203;  their  value  to  direct  preparation,  culture, 
and  discipline,  217;  increasingly  exact  location  necessary  as  knowledge  of 
details  increases,  220;  the  relative  uselessness  of  detailed  outlines,  88,  215; 
the  true  type  study  involves  general  form,  88;  historical  text-books  and  local 
courses  need  be  only  partly  identical,  168;  ehmination  of  all  material 
hostile  to  citizenship,  182,  183,  or  useful  only  to  the  specialist,  185;  many 
directly  useful  historical  associations  not  useful  to  apperception,  214; 
but  early  organization  of  historical  material  useful,  252,  263;  present 
relation  of  ancient  history  and  the  classics  must  be  reversed,  161;  lack  of 
definite  historical  knowledge,  59. 

HowERTH,  I.  W.:  Calls  attention  to  the  fundamental  problem  of  general  disci- 
phne,  79,  Note  42. 

Hygiene:  Analyzed  into  definite  ends,  258. 

Imitation:   Sometimes  a  necessary  means  to  self-activity,  20. 

Immediacy  of  usefulness  as  a  phase  of  the  test  for  relative  worth:  De- 
termining for  stage  at  which  useful  relationships  shall  be  taught,  195; 
except  in  the  case  of  essential  relationships,  196;  optional  material  must  be 
immediately  many-sided  and  recurring,  201;  comprehension  and  interest 
reducible  to  immediacy,  180;  the  test  of  immediacy  makes  unnecessary 
artificial  correlation  and  misapplication  of  the  "spiral  method,"  264. 
See  Relative  worth. 

Impression:   See  Cumulative  impression. 

Indirect  preparation  for  life:  Too  economical  to  ignore,  29.  See  Formal 
self -activity. 

Individuality:  Assured  in  elementary  course  by  emphasis  of  optional  material, 
168,  169;  and  by  adequate  provision  for  early  specialization,  147;  dis- 
covery of  genius  through  the  art  work  essential  for  all,  146,  147. 

Initial  remembrance:   See  Mere  remembrance. 

Interest:  Cumulative  impression  its  formal  phase,  31-40;  its  variable  associa- 
tion through  mere  remembrance  and  varying  apperception,  39;  dependent 
upon  method  and  organization,  180,  194;  degree  of  inherent  sensation  and 
emotion  a  fundamental  measure  of  relative  worth,  in;  genetic  conditions 
determining  only  for  optional  material,  198,  199;  interest  atavistic  if  in 
phases  of  primitive  life  hostile  to  educational  aim,  182,  183,  192.  See 
Cumulative  impression,  Mere  remembrance,  Varying  apperception,  and 
Relative  worth  of  relationships. 

IsocRATES:  His  view  of  the  subjective  limitations  to  training,  164,  Note  78. 

Jacotot:  Memorizing  a  specific  passage  as  a  basis  for  the  assimilation  of  all 
related  knowledge,  245,  Note  87. 

James,  William:  In  his  "Talks  to  Teachers"  made  application  too  dependent 
upon  the  power  of  adaptation,  92,  Note  48;  "sagacity"  makes  possible 
identification  in  an  unusual  environment,  102. 

JuDD,  Charles  H.:  His  advocacy  of  continuity  through  vocational  specializa- 
tion, 185,  Note  100. 


314  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

Ktjersteiner,  a.  F.:  General  terminology  less  readily  applied  by  school  children, 

129,  Note  61. 
KtfLPE,  Oswald:   Psychological  basis  for  impression,  40,  Note  23. 

Latin.   See  Foreign  language. 

Life,  direct  preparation  for.    See  Direct  preparation  for  life. 

Literature:  Ensures  the  emotional  form  necessary  to  cumulative  impression, 
95,  114,  156-158;  the  more  aesthetic  and  emotional  an  immoral  idea,  the 
greater  its  harmfulness,  182;  early  organization  of  literary  material  useful, 
221,  263,  267. 

Lowell,  A.  L.r  Reaction  toward  academic  concentration  at  Harvard,  15. 

Mathematics:  Limited  subject  matter  favorable  to  temporary  certainty  and 
system,  61,  72,  113;  Professor  Schwatt's  plea  for  certainty  and  continuity 
through  concentration,  15,  135,  Note  10;  except  for  the  specialist,  mathe- 
matics lacking  in  continuity,  61,  73;  its  study  wasteful  if  for  general 
discipline  alone,  66,  74,  80;  pedagogical  method  necessary,  85;  interest  in 
subject  matter  not  always  carried  over  to  a  mathematical  process,  93,  96; 
special  vocabulary  necessary  to  mathematical  judgment,  99;  the  limited 
amount  of  concrete  knowledge  mathematically  useful,  100;  analysis  and 
synthesis  as  means  to  mathematical  judgment,  103,  104;  suggested  by 
mathematical  material  alone,  105;  mathematics  ill-suited  to  develop  adap- 
tation or  truthfulness,  109;  of  little  aid  to  varying  apperception,  11 6-1 19; 
specialized  appHcation  of  its  principles  independent  of  school  work,  117, 118; 
number  too  general  in  its  application  to  recall  many-sided  associations,  118; 
the  greater  part  of  mathematics  left  to  the  specialist,  123-126,  274-276; 
a  broader  elementary  course,  123,  Note  58;  algebra  and  geometry  no  longer 
required  as  wholes,  124;  hence  more  thorough  training  for  those  who  elect 
them,  125;  a  last  attempt  at  specialization  in  first  college  year,  270;  mathe- 
matical specialization  early  in  school  life,  274-278. 

McMuLLiN,  Walter  G.:  His  investigation  of  variation  in  grammatical 
terminology,  86,  Note  43. 

McMuRRY,  Dr.  Frank:   Critique  of  his  test  for  elimination,  179,  180,  Note  79. 

Memorizing:  Reaction  against  it  hurtful  to  discipline,  15,  16;  all  mechanical 
memorizing  not  hostile  to  self-activity,  16,  31;  the  general  usefulness  of 
specific  discipline  emphasizes  mechanical  memorizing,  75,  105;  the  new  edu- 
cation does  not  demand  less  memorizing  than  the  old,  but  the  memorizing 
of  essential  relationships,  75,  165,  292-294;  limited  time  available  makes 
their  determination  fundamental,  166,  167;  and  excludes  specialization  on 
disciplinary  grounds  alone,  178;  material  to  be  memorized  largely  uniform 
for  local  courses  of  study,  167-169;  the  certain  memorizing  of  essential 
relationships  conditions  the  mastery  of  optional,  169,  170;  necessary  to  in- 
tellectual and  moral  freedom,  237. 

Mere  remembrance:  Based  on  partial  concepts,  40-47;  all  knowledge  cannot 
be  specific  and  adequate,  41 ;  partial  concepts  the  germs  of  mental  growth, 
42,  43;  they  should  be  taught  and  tested  for,  43,  44;  no  menace  to  exact 
knowledge,  43,  44;  mere  retention  useful,  45;  made  most  useful  through 
instruction,  45,  46;  many-sidedness  essential  in  the  college,  46,  47;  a  condi- 
tion to  general  discipline,  96-98;  limited  furtherance  of  mere  remembrance 
through  the  formal  subjects,  113-119,  213;  aided  by  ready  use  of  a  foreign 
language,  114;  ready  use  involves  adequate  mastery,  115;  good  translations 
adequate  from  this  point  of  view,  115,  224;  determination  of  relative  useful- 
ness to  mere  remembrance,  195-213;  furthered  by  partial  concepts  of  essen- 
tial content,  196, 197;  and  by  optional  material  immediately  many-sided  and 
recurring,  197;  words  its  most  useful  material,  200-213;  the  value  of  note- 
taking,  200;  the  value  of  general  ideas,  203;  general  historical  and  geo- 
graphical locations  useful  as  both  memory  and  apperception  centers,  202, 
203,  208,  209;  grammatical  classification  and  number  useless  as  centers, 


ANALYTIC  INDEX  315 

206,  207;  etymological  grouping  of  high  value,  207,  208;  stories  as  centers 
for  all  school  work  useful  to  mere  remembrance  alone,  210;  much  reading 
an  aid  to  mere  remembrance,  155,  211;  superfluous  spelling  an  obstacle  to 
the  development  of  vocabulary,  211,  212. 

Method.    See  Pedagogical  and  method. 

Modern  Language  Association  of  America:  Movement  to  ensure  uni- 
formity in  grammatical  nomenclature,  86,  Note  44. 

Moral  training:  Must  be  formal  in  the  sense  of  pedagogic  system,  256-258; 
such  system  results  from  the  test  of  relative  worth,  259;  it  must  dominate 
life,  69;  "general  moral  habits"  inadequate,  226;  its  ideas  and  habits  must 
have  a  general  stimulus,  70;  importance  of  typical  examples,^  55,  91 ;  lack 
of  definite  moral  and  religious  knowledge,  59;  even  partial  religious  concepts 
should  be  specific,  59;  necessity  for  emotionalizing  moral  ideas,  94-96;  for 
making  them  many-sided  in  association,  97;  analysis  associated  with 
specific  fields  of  appliction,  105;  operates  in  the  face  of  opposing  tendencies, 
106;  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  illustrated  through  obedience, 
228-230;  the  necessity  of  every  type  of  instruction  to  moral  and  religious 
training,  187,  188;  varying  apperception  of  a  stimulus  to  moral  action,  iii, 
112;  analysis  and  synthesis  in  the  presence  of  conflicting  suggestions,  106, 
107;  moral  training  requires  the  cumulative  re-enforcement  of  a  great 
intellectual,  emotional,  and  motor  system,  225,  233;  formal  analysis  rela- 
tively complete  for  morality  and  religion,  244;  pedagogical  analysis  still 
lacking,  244.    See  Chaps.  IX  and  X. 

More,  Sir  Thomas:   Insistence  upon  democratic  culture,  139,  Note  68. 

Moving  pictures:  A  means  to  aesthetic  training,  148. 

Music:  Undemocratic  if  appreciation  is  sacrificed  to  a  vain  effort  at  expression, 
145;  love  of  music  independent  of  reading  by  note,  149;  even  mediocre  sing- 
ing useful,  149;  avocation  must  not  be  sacrificed  to  artistic  skill,  150;  the 
phonograph  effective  for  the  development  of  musical  taste,  150;  other 
means  available,  151. 

Natural  science:  All  details  must  not  serve  as  stimuli  to  observation  and 
analysis,  70,  71;  but  only  specific  stimuli,  68,  81-83;  not  recognizable  in 
fields  whose  details  are  unfamiliar,  loi,  102;  analysis  and  synthesis  suggested 
by  the  type  of  material  ordinarily  associated  with  them,  106;  drill  in 
application  involves  scientific  experimentation,  108;  but  not  mastery  of 
any  one  science  as  a  whole,  108,  109;  the  tendency  toward  requiring  one  or 
more  sciences  without  specifying  which,  130;  the  formation  of  scientific 
habits  assured  by  study  of  the  most  directly  useful  parts  of  all  sciences,  130, 
131;  Thomas  Hill's  argument  for  a  broader  elementary  course,  131;  in 
local  courses  and  various  text-books  only  essential  facts  and  principles  of 
elementary  science  need  be  identical,  167,  168;  organization  about  useful 
facts  and  principles,  252,  253,  267-271;  necessity  for  eliminating  details 
useful  only  to  the  specialist,  181,  183-186;  Joseph  Payne's  attempt  to 
teach  physics  through  the  pile-driver,  261;  Thomas  Hill's  illustration  leads 
to  useful  system,  261. 

New  York  High  School  Teachers'  Association,  Questionnaire  of:  Indica- 
tive of  tendency  toward  educational  readjustment,|2i-23,  Note  15;  its  query 
as  to  whether  one  foreign  language  cannot  be  substituted  for  the  two  now 
required  for  college  entrance,  22,  127. 

Optional  relationships:  Contrasted  with  essential,  165,  166;  bearing  of  this 
distinction  upon  the  recitation,  198;  exact  determination  of  their  relative 
worth  unnecessary,  167;  local  courses  of  study  therefore  identical  in  the 
relative  usefulness  of  their  optional  relationships,  167-169;  training  of  teach- 
ers to  teach  them  and  to  test  for  them,  169;  their  mastery  conditioned  by 
that  of  essential  relationships,  169,  170;  the  means  to  subjective  speciali- 
zation, 172,  173;  instruction  must  select  the  parts  of  personal  experience  to 


3l6  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

which  they  are  related,  218;  largely  identical  for  direct  preparation,  culture, 
general  discipline,  and  specialization,  176;  more  useful  through  readiness 
of  mastery,  192;  must  be  immediately  many-sided  and  recurring,  195,  196; 
cumulative  many-sidedness  a  means  to  their  being  remembered,  197;  de- 
termination of  their  relative  worth,  197;  genetic  conditions  determining  for 
them  alone,  198,  199. 
Oral  instruction:  Must  not  result  in  only  temporary  self-activity  or  vague 
impression,  31. 

Partial  concept:  Basis  for  initial  remembrance,  40;  all  knowledge  cannot 
be  adequate,  41;  partial  concepts  the  germs  of  mental  growth,  42.  See 
Mere  remembrance. 

Payne,  Joseph:  Extreme  academic  concentration  as  means  to  formal  disci- 
pline, 13,  76,  Note  3;  admission  that  other  studies  than  Latin  must  be 
taught  for  their  disciplinary  value,  14,  Note  6;  fallacy  of  attempting  to 
teach  children  all  useful  knowledge  and  activities,  13,  69,  Notes  2  and  38; 
his  attempt  to  teach  science  through  the  pile-driver,  261,  Note  94. 

Payne,  W.  H.:  His  indicatioti  of  the  *'tonic"  value  of  education,  37,  Note  24; 
points  out  Mr.  Spencer's  failure  to  distinguish  between  what  is  useful  to  the 
race  through  the  speciaHst  and  what  is  directly  useful  to  all,  112, 183,  Note 
80. 

Pedagogical  method:  Overconfidence  in  academic  method  hurtful  to  disci- 
pline, 16;  academic  method  a  part  of  the  discipline  sought  rather  than  a 
means  to  it,  297;  pedagogical  method  demands  logical  organization,  260; 
can  ensure  certainty  and  system  for  any  subject  matter,  62;  can  ensure 
generally  useful  habits  through  direct  preparation,  74;  essential  to  the  habit- 
ual consciousness  of  the  most  useful  stimulus,  85;  general  discipline  within 
the  languages  dependent  upon  it,  129;  necessary  to  specialization,  283. 

Phonograph:  A  means  to  aesthetic  training,  150, 

Physiology:  Its  failure  to  eliminate  details  mainly  useful  through  the  speciaHst, 
184,  185;  organized  from  the  standpoint  of  direct  usefulness,  258. 

Protagoras:  The  part  that  music  and  literature  played  in  the  education  of  the 
Greek  boy,  157,  Note  75. 

Quick,  R.  H.:  Remembered  more  through  his  personality  than  his  teaching,  37, 
Note  26;  gives  a  misapplication  of  Thomas  Arnold's  correlation  of  the 
classics  with  modern  life,  162;  his  recognition  of  both  interest  and  mechanical 
repetition,  170. 

Reading:  Its  various  aims  conflicting,  153,  154;  unimpressive  reading  hostile 
to  a  taste  for  good  literature,  154;  the  juvenilizing  of  literature  hinders  the 
development  of  vocabulary  and  aesthetic  taste,  154,  155;  intensive  study  of 
masterpieces  prevents  interest  in  general  literature,  156;  much  reading 
essential  to  mere  remembrance  and  varying  apperception,  43;  in  mechanical 
reading  mastery  of  phonograms  essential,  201. 

Readjustment,  demand  for  educational:  Tendency  toward  it,  11-20; 
questionnaire  of  New  York  City  high  school  teachers,  21-23;  should  be 
determined  by  scientific  research,  23,  24,  Note  16;  taking  the  form  of 
academic  concentration  and  vocational  specialization,  14,  15,  25-27;  such 
readjustment  inadequate,  178;  readjustment  through  the  dominance  and 
continuity  of  useful  system,  65,  73,  and  Chaps.  IX  and  X. 

Reform,  educational.     See  Readjustment. 

Relationships:  Usefulness  of  ideas  dependent  upon  them,  33,  no;  direct  and 
indirect  usefulness,  35,  36;  forgotten  relationships  basal  for  cumulative  im- 
pression, 33,  34;  partial  and  incidental  relationships  for  mere  remembrance, 
34;  many-sided  and  variable  relationships  for  vap^ing  apperception,  34; 
definite  and  specific  relationships  for  specific  discipline,  35;  specific  and 
certain  relationships  having  a  general  stimulus  for  general  discipline,  35; 


ANALYTIC  INDEX  317 

means  of  measuring  the  usefulness  of  relationships,  iii;  efifectiveness  of 
typical  relationships,  56;  fundamental  distinction  between  optional  and 
essential  relationships,  165,  166.  See  Relative  worth  of  relationships. 
Essential  relationships,  and  Optional  relationships. 

Relative  worth  of  relationships,  test  for:  Its  fundamental  phases,  Chap. 
IV,  III;  identical  for  direct  preparation,  formal  self -activity,  culture,  and 
specialization,  162,  166;  the  psychological  and  physiological  limit  to 
memorizing  makes  necessary  determination  of  the  most  useful  relationships, 
166;  an  exact  determination  of  relative  worth  unnecessary,  166,  167;  ap- 
plication of  the  test  ensures  uniformity  in  essentials  and  in  degree  of  use- 
fulness, 167-169;  absence  of  immediate  worth  indicates  need  of  elimination 
of  specialized  material,  183-186;  the  determination  of  what  is  relatively 
most  useful  to  formal  self-activity.  Chap.  VIII,  191-^236;  degree  of  sensation 
or  emotion  the  chief  measure  for  cumulative  impression,  191 ;  cumulative  im- 
pression and  mere  remembrance  furthered  by  mere  impressibility  and  readi- 
ness of  mastery,  192;  application  of  the  test  to  determine  relationships 
useful  to  mere  remembrance,  195-213;  identical  for  both  essential  and 
optional  material,  195;  the  stage  for  partial  mastery  fixed  by  immediacy 
of  usefulness,  196;  genetic  conditions  determining  for  only  optional  material, 
198,  199;  application  of  the  test  for  varying  apperception,  213-225;  deter- 
mination of  what  is  useful  to  general  discipline,  225-236;  many-sidedness  and 
recurrence  determining  for  locality  and  immediacy  for  grade,  230;  applica- 
tion of  the  test  results  in  cumulative  system,  245-255;  and  determines  the 
parts  of  academic  branches  to  be  included  in  it,  251,  252;  its  application  to 
academic  organization,  260-271;  its  application  to  specialization,  271-274. 
See  Elimination,  Emotional  appeal.  Immediacy,  and  System. 

Remembrance.     See  Mere  remembrance. 

Research,  scientific  educational:  Should  determine  readjustment,  23,  24; 
United  States  Bureau  should  supervise  it,  24,  299. 

Retentiveness,  native:   In  high  degree  furthers  mere  remembrance,  43. 

Roosevelt,  Theodore:  Favorable  review  of  Amherst  reaction  from  direct 
preparation  for  life,  26,  141,  161,  Note  18. 

Rounds,  C.  R.:  His  attempt  to  ensure  uniformity  in  nomenclature  in  English 
grammar  and  language  books,  129,  Notes  44  and  62.  See  Hale  and  Keur- 
steiner. 

Rush,  Benjamin:  His  opposition  to  undemocratic  culture,  27,  137,  Notes  19 
and  66. 

School  city:  A  very  partial  panacea  for  interests  hostile  to  school,  38. 

Schwatt,  Isaac  J.:  Argument  favoring  academic  concentration  in  mathe- 
matical teaching,  15,  135,  Note  10. 

Self-activity:   See  Formal  self -activity. 

Sensational  appeal  as  a  factor  in  determining  relative  worth.  See 
Emotional  appeal. 

Sheldon,  Winthrop  D.:  The  teaching  of  morality  through  literature,  254, 
Note  90. 

Smith,  Eugene:  His  effort  to  use  the  study  of  arithmetic  as  a  means  to  vary- 
ing apperception,  117,  118. 

Specialization:  Mere  specialization  hostile  to  general  culture  and  direct 
preparation,  25-28;  distinction  between  specific  discipline  essential  to  the 
general  student  and  that  essential  to  the  specialist,  67;  modern  culture  so 
extensive  as  to  make  necessary  specialization  in  culture  itself,  28,  138,  139; 
specialization,  culture,  and  direct  preparation  for  life  should  parallel  each 
other,  159,  172-178;  Greek  and  Latin  mainly  within  the  field  of  specializa- 
tion, 160-162,  276-278;  so  with  the  development  of  artistic  expression, 
146,  147;  the  greater  part  of  mathematics,  123-126,  274-276;  and  the  in- 
tensive study  of  the  natural  sciences,  131;  subjective  specialization  in  the 
lower  grades  assured  through  optional  material,  172,  173;  all  forms  of 


3i8  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

specialization  must  vary  with  individuals,  174;  whether  specialization 
results  in  concentration  and  specific  discipline  depends  upon  pedagogic 
method,  174;  in  higher  schools  it  must  not  exclude  what  is  essential  to 
direct  preparation  in  general,  175;  wasteful  to  compel  individuals  to 
specialize  on  disciplinary  ground  alone,  177;  elimination  of  all  details 
useful  only  to  the  specialist,  183-186;  three  distinct  kinds  of  specialization 
variously  affected  by  the  test  of  relative  worth,  271;  it  determines  what 
should  be  permanently  retained  and  the  order  in  which  it  should  be  mas- 
tered, 272;  specialization  in  mathematics  and  the  languages  should  begin 
early,  274-278;  even  specialization  in  avocation  determined  by  the  test  of 
relative  worth,  278-281;  it  also  determines  the  relative  part  to  be  played 
by  specialization  and  general  education,  280;  continuity  only  secondarily 
assured  through  specialization.  Chap.  X,  282-294;  but  to  ensure  it  specializa- 
tion must  supplement  direct  preparation,  296.  See  Academic  concentra- 
tion and  Vocational  specialization. 

Specific  discipline:  The  one  phase  of  formal  self -activity  which  is  definite  and 
certain,  57;  involves  system  as  well  as  habit,  57;  equal  certainty  to  that  of 
experience  necessary  through  instruction  for  the  most  useful  habit  and 
system,  57;  specific  discipline  the  most  essential  condition  to  the  usefulness 
of  other  phases  of  formal  self -activity,  58,  59,  74,  237;  useful  apperception 
must  be  specific  as  well  as  varying,  59,  60;  the  general  usefulness  of  specific 
discipline  emphasizes  mechanical  memorizing,  75,  165;  reaction  against 
memorizing  has  left  specific  discipline  too  largely  to  individual  determina- 
tion, 60;  individual  apperception  and  specific  mastery  supplementary,  60; 
abstract  subjects  compel  temporary  certainty  and  system,  60;  certainty 
and  system  the  first  steps  toward  general  discipline,  61;  continuity  often 
lacking  in  the  abstract  subject  after  formal  study  ceases,  61,  72,  73;  con- 
tinuity must  be  insured  through  useful  relationships,  66;  pedagogical  or- 
ganization and  method  can  ensure  certainty  and  system  in  any  branch  of 
study,  62;  direct  preparation  for  each  essential  phase  of  life  demands 
greater  system,  certainty,  and  continuity  than  the  formal  subjects,  63,  73; 
confined  to  specialization  and  incidental  experience  specific  discipline 
tends  to  make  life  too  one-sided,  64,  65;  directly  useful  systems  must  be 
made  dominant,  65,  73;  discipline  through  studying  the  formal  subjects 
as  wholes  wasteful  if  they  are  not  useful  as  wholes,  66,  177,  178;  the  sys- 
tem made  certain  through  instruction  must  include  those  of  experience, 
67;  to  dominate  experience,  it  must  be  certainly  related  to  life,  67,  68; 
such  domination  dependent  upon  varying  apperception  and  general  disci- 
pline, 69;  only  the  most  useful  relationships  can  be  made  certain,  70,  82-84; 
many-sidedness  and  specific  discipline  supplementary,  69;  specific  disci- 
pline a  condition  to  the  usefulness  of  all  other  self -activity,  57-59,  70-76, 
98-101 ;  academic  system  as  a  whole  does  not  carry  over  beyond  its  special 
field,  68;  for  the  sake  of  discipHne  alone  a  particular  academic  subject 
should  not  be  required  of  all,  66;  inadequacy  of  specific  discipline,  69; 
the  completeness  of  treatment  demanded  by  speciaHsts  hostile  to  disci- 
pline, 133 ;  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  results  in  a  cumulative 
and  dominating  specific  system.  Chap.  IX,  237-281;  it  culminates  in  system 
favorable  to  formal  self-activity,  that  essential  to  direct  preparation,  and 
that  involved  in  specialization,  238;  the  system  favorable  to  formal  self- 
activity  and  direct  preparation  lacking  in  ordinary  academic  study,  239; 
the  application  of  the  test  of  relative  worth  results  in  these  systems,  245-255; 
continuity  and  dominance  of  system  primarily  brought  about  by  direct 
preparation;  secondarily,  through  specialization,  Chap.  X,  282,  299;  from 
the  standpoint  of  continuity,  habit  need  be  considered  in  four  degrees  of 
complexity,  282-285. 

Spelling:  Test  to  determine  the  relative  usefulness  of  spelling  words,  201; 
aided  by  etymological  grouping,  208;  specific  spelling  drill  should  be 
limited  to  words  frequently  recurring  in  ordinary  writing,  211. 


ANALYTIC  INDEX  319 

Spencer,  Herbert:  Assumes  the  adequacy  of  incidental  discipline,  72,  Note 
39;  failure  to  distinguish  between  what  is  useful  to  the  race  through  the 
specialist  and  what  is  directly  useful  to  all,  112;  relative  educational  worth 
not  determinable  by  his  test  from  viewpoint  of  racial  survival,  240. 

Swift,  E.  O.:   His  noting  of  periods  of  arrested  development,  283,  Note  99. 

System  which  results  from  relative  worth:  A  phase  of  specific  discipline, 
24s;  its  embryonic  beginnings  with  memory  centers,  213,  214,  222;  its  de- 
velopment through  their  interrelationship  as  a  means  to  apperception,  223; 
such  groups  and  systems,  whether  directly  useful,  academic,  or  specialized, 
must  be  many-sided  and  frequently  recurring,  214;  the  mastery  of  any 
academic  system  furthers  varying  apperception,  225;  only  direct  prepara- 
tion deserves  dominance  through  cumulative  organization,  216;  it  must 
reorganize  both  academic  and  the  specific  disciplines  of  life  itself,  67,  73; 
academic  systems  cannot  be  appHed  as  wholes  outside  of  their  academic 
fields,  79,  80;  specific  discipline  includes  the  system  favorable  to  formal  self- 
activity,  that  essential  to  direct  preparation,  and  those  involved  in  special- 
ization, 238;  they  cumulatively  result  from  the  determination  of  relative 
worth,  245;  to  be  strongly  distinguished  from  mere  logical  outline  or  mode 
of  procedure,  246;  cumulative  system  includes  only  those  parts  of  academic 
branches  that  stand  the  test  of  relative  worth,  249;  illustrated  through  the 
system  essential  to  good  citizenship,  249-251;  useful  correlation  furthered 
by  directly  useful  material  cumulatively  and  academically  organized,  251, 
252;  scope  of  academic  organization  in  general  education  limited  by  rela- 
tive worth,  252;  a  national  system  of  education  either  dominates  popular 
ideals  or  is  dominated  by  them,  254;  direct  preparation  demands  cumula- 
tive system,  245-260;  where  direct  or  indirect  furtherance  does  not  demand 
logical  organization,  pedagogical  method  does,  260;  determination  of  rela- 
tive worth  both  ensures  and  limits  academic  organization,  261;  so  limited, 
it  is  cumulative  rather  than  comprehensive,  262;  the  various  branches  differ 
greatly  in  the  extent  to  which  cumulative  academic  organization  is  pos- 
sible, 262;  cumulative  system  differs  from  the  "spiral  method,"  264; 
renders  unnecessary  incidental  instruction  and  artificial  correlation,  265; 
the  true  means  to  continuity,  265;  correlation  of  academic  system  with 
direct  preparation  essential  to  general  discipline,  267;  academic  and  di- 
rectly useful  organization  should  parallel  each  other,  268;  continuity  and 
dominance  for  cumulative  system  result  from  direct  preparation  and 
specialization.  Chap.  X,  282-299;  from  standpoint  of  continuity,  habit 
must  be  considered  in  four  degrees  of  complexity,  282-285. 

Temperance  instruction,  scientific:  A  partial  phase  of  temperance  training, 
40. 

Thorndike,  W.  L.:  Experiments  caused  lessened  confidence  in  formal  disci- 
pline, 18;  demonstrate  that  general  discipline  is  not  a  matter  of  course,  78. 

Type-studies:  Their  essential  similarity  must  be  memorized  in  general  form, 
88.     See  General  stimulus. 

Uniform  course  of  study:  Uniformity  for  various  localities  largely  limited  to 
essential  relationships,  Chap.  VI,  165-178;  optional  relationships  should  be 
identical  in  relative  usefulness  rather  than  in  themselves,  167-169;  uniform- 
ity no  menace  to  individuality  if  optional  material  is  emphasized,  168. 

U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education:  Should  supervise  scientific  educational  research, 
24. 

Varying  apperception:  Distinguished  from  other  forms  of  apperception,  47; 
the  means  to  recollection  and  concentration,  48,  49;  useful  concentration 
demands  useful  subordination  and  systematization,  50,  51;  apperception 
of  specific  and  certain  groups  of  ideas  essential  to  useful  concentration,  51, 
54.  55»  69;  varying  apperception  may  be  hostile  to  cumulative  impression. 


320  ANALYTIC  INDEX 

52,  96;^  the  most  useful  varying  apperception,  53;  all  imagination  and 
many-sided  experience  useful  if  they  are  not  harmful,  54;  varying  apper- 
ception as  a  means  to  general  discipline,  48,  96-98;  here  a  means  to  ap- 
pHcation  rather  than  to  mere  generalization,  97;  the  formal  subjects  too 
limited  in  subject  matter  to  ensure  it,  114;  furthered  by  ready  use  of  a 
foreign  language  rather  than  by  process  of  mastery,  114;  such  ready  use 
infrequent,  115;  the  reading  of  good  translations  adequate  for  varying 
apperception,  115;  mastery  of  mathematics  of  little  aid,  116-119,  Note  57; 
number  too  general  in  its  application  to  ensure  many-sided  associations,  118; 
varying  apperception  furthered  by  the  most  many-sided  and  recurring 
relationships  wherever  found,  119;  best  assured  through  material  organized 
for  direct  furtherance,  120;  apperception  should  be  of  the  stimulus  in  its 
most  useful  form,  97;  the  determination  of  the  relationships  most  useful  to 
it,  213-225;  not  only  memory  centers,  but  systems  of  centers,  useful,  213; 
but  only  when  they  are  both  many-sided  and  recurring,  214;  the  waste- 
fulness of  memorizing  detailed  outlines,  215;  centers  and  systems  for  vary- 
ing apperception  need  not  be  directly  useful,  215;  but  in  general  education 
only  direct  preparation  should  be  given  dominance,  216;  academic  corre- 
lation inadequate  for  useful  apperception,  216;  the  more  general  phases  of 
personal  experience  and  general  historical  and  geographical  localities  and 
sequence  most  useful,  217;  instruction  must  select  the  parts  of  personal 
experience  to  which  optional  content  is  to  be  related,  218;  experience  mainly 
useful  to  varying  apperception  through  accidental  and  even  absurd  juxta- 
positions, 219;  increasingly  exact  location  necessary  as  knowledge  of  details 
increases,  220;  great  artists  and  their  masterpieces  should  be  associated  with 
each  other,  221;  such  association  as  truly  the  work  of  college  as  of  secondary 
school,  221;  furthers  democratic  culture  and  ensures  the  most  useful  varying 
apperception,  222;  instruction  must  ensure  the  certain  memorizing  of  useful 
centers  and  persistent  association  of  new  material  with  them,  223;  their 
usefulness  dependent  upon  that  of  the  optional  material  thus  brought  to 
bear,  224;  ready  use  of  a  foreign  language  an  aid  to  varying  apperception, 
224. 
Vocational  specialization:  Hostile  to  democracy  if  at  the  expense  of  direct 
preparation  for  life  in  general  or  of  general  culture  and  discipline,  25; 
vocational  motive  too  partial  a  panacea  for  influences  hostile  to  the  school, 
38;  partly  identical  with  direct  preparation  in  general  in  its  essential  rela- 
tionships, 177;  the  test  of  relative  worth  determines  which  vocational  rela- 
tionships should  be  permanently  retained,  272;  should  be  prepared  for 
through  academic  specialization  in  the  earliest  school  years,  286-292;  its 
initial  limit  economic  conditions,  284;  impracticable  as  a  means  to  con- 
tinuity, 285;  academic  specialization  should  be  strengthened  by  varying 
vocational  motive,  286;  it  in  turn  should  re-enforce  direct  preparation,  288. 

War:  All  that  interests  young  children  in  bloodshed  should  be  excluded  from 
the  course  of  study,  182,  183;  importance  of  ensuring  a  cimiulative  impres- 
sion of  the  horrors  and  sufferings  of  war,  183. 

Wayland,  Francis:  His  "new  system"  prophetic  of  the  cumulative  system  of 
direct  preparation,  245,  Note  88. 

West,  Andrew  Fleming:  His  attack  on  direct  preparation  for  Hfe,  26,  Note  17; 
his  reference  to  men  who  are  educated,  but  not  intelligent,  37,  Note  25. 

White,  James  T.:  The  teaching  of  morality  through  biography,  254,  Note  92. 

Wilson,  Woodrow:  His  demand  for  academic  concentration  through  eliminat- 
ing social  distractions,  15,  Note  8;  his  insistence  that  more  foreign  languages 
should  be  mastered  previous  to  college  entrance,  127,  128,  Note  59. 


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